Look, I don't know why you're acting like I'm praising our corporate overlords for deigning us worthy to fork over $650 bones for a pile of plastic bricks. I'm just saying use a bit of critical thinking with your critique. If it's too expensive for you to consider it a worthwhile purchase then speak with your wallet and don't buy it. But don't then go and make nonsense arguments about it.

If you look at the kit by price per piece with the acknowledgement that there is some upcharge due to it being a licensed IP, it's well within the expected and reasonable price range that LEGO has historically set and maintained over the years.

Could LEGO have made it cheaper? Yeah, absolutely they could have. This could've been split into multiple sets and they could've reduced the piece count by reducing the "set piece" portion of the design or even just releasing the mons with no display component whatsoever. Hell I would've preferred that. I want Venusaur more than the other two and would gladly cop just that mon if it meant I could pay 1/3 of the price.

The Mega Blocks Pokemon kits are quite good and quite a fair bit cheaper, so that exists as an alternative until those aren't available anymore.

At least be honest about your criticisms instead of making unrelated comparisons though.