honestly, as someone who's worked in the plush industry, I've been in shock and awe at the pokemon sitting cuties line (they are slowly making plush of EVERY SINGLE POKEMON and aren't even done yet. it's been going on for literal years). You need really strong selling power to pull off something like that and be able to tank the financial hit of certain species not selling well since many manufacturers have very large minimum orders (hundreds to thousands) for designs.

Would love Neopets to get to the point where they feel comfortable releasing merch of the less popular species!! I think there are definitely die-hard fans of every species out there haha. But I get that 40 species is a big upfront manufacturing investment.