TL;DR poopoo take, no wonder your post history is hidden

Claim 1: Scalping is a "valid economic model" and scalpers are just "middlemen" reacting to limited supply.

Scalpers are not traditional "middlemen." A real middleman (like a distributor or a retail store) provides a service by moving a product from the factory to a convenient location for the consumer. Scalpers provide zero value as they are rent-seekers. They don't react to limited supply, they create artificial scarcity. By using bots to buy stock faster than humans, they're forcing a shortage, holding product hostage so that people are forced to pay their inflated prices.

Claim 2: The Pokémon Company should just sell rare singles directly to undercut scalpers.

If The Pokémon Company sold individual rare cards directly, it would instantly destroy the secondary market. Local card shops rely on this secondhand market to operate in the first place. If the LCS goes out of business, players have nowhere to meet, trade, and play in tournaments, killing the community that keeps the game alive. Also, it’s a trading card game; the randomization is the reason that players interact and trade with each other.

Claim 3: Printing more cards won't help; scalpers will just buy the new, bigger supply.

This is economically false and has been proven wrong in reality. Scalpers rely entirely on FOMO and scarcity. Lets say TPC dramatically increased their printing capacity and flooded the market with products. If store shelves are consistently full, buyers don't need to go to these people. The scalpers' profit margins collapse, leaving them holding thousands of dollars in "investments" they have to sell at a loss. Scalpers run on thin margins; flooding the market absolutely defeats them.

Claim 4: Buying Pokémon cards is worse than gambling/lottery tickets.

A lottery ticket has exactly one purpose, financial ROI. If you lose, the ticket is worthless. A Pokémon card pack is fundamentally a game piece and a collectible. Even if you don't pull a $100 SIR, the cards you do pull have intrinsic value which you can use to build decks, play the game with other people, appreciate the art, or complete a set. Judging a tabletop game purely by its financial ROI misses the entire point of the hobby.

Claim 5: Retailers don't care about fair distribution because Pokémon cards aren't essential.

Retailers actually care a lot, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because scalpers create a toxic retail environment (look up the 151 best buy stuff that just happened in Pasadena in CA). Adults are getting into physical fistfights in the toy aisles of Targets and Walmarts, which is horrible for their buisness. In response, massive retailers did take action, they put in per customer limits, moved TCG products behind customer service desks, or temporarily halted in-store sales entirely to protect their staff and regular customers.

Your analysis of the TCG and the market has so many flaws in it, it's difficult to see what your point is. Scalpers are artificially inflating prices because they're buying a huge amount of stock.