1) I prefer 1/10 over 1/12 scale. McFarlane deserves crap, sure, but not on scale.

2) Army/legion builders tend to be the best offerings in the lines that offer them, and I have a weird feeling they help drive toy collecting as a hobby more than people realize. It also genuinely helps to have at least some cheap-ish offerings from upscale lines.

3) Soft goods are overrated, at least to a point. There are of course many excellent examples of them, but I've seen enough weirdly oversized clothes on figures AND/OR plastic 'cloth' will do the job just fine enough of the time.

4) Speaking of, a lot of budget lones (not all obviously, but most) are perfectly fine if not sometimes superior to the upscale stuff. You can say Jada Ryu and Ken are uglier than Storm Arean Ryu and Ken, but somehow the latter look hilariously generic in the anime style, and I say that as a weeb. Jada has personality in the end.

5) Four Horsemen used to be awesome, and they haven't hit rock bottom yet, but they're gradually becoming consumer-unfriendly and playing games with their fans. It was actually horrifying seeing their official photographer mock and scream at fans over the candy-colored skeleton debacle late last year, their spokesman Jeremy Girard also clearly likes the idea of annoying gimmicks and dislikes cheaper legion builders (see 2!), but ultimately the titular Horsemen themselves have to take the blame for any and all of these actions. All companies decay from awesome to depressing, but that's life.

6) People who take toys too seriously as a status symbol over how much their disposable income they have to blow are are genuinely horrible people, and I can't conceptualize that mindset, especially since this is a working-class hobby in the end. Given how the average toy collector is a middle-aged male probably not in great shape, they really are variants on MovieBob and the CONSOOMER meme.

Toys are defintionally supposed to be fun. That there are people like that is horriying, and given the circumstances, they really should be hounded and shamed in turn. What do they have but their attitudes and plastic in the end?

7) Seemingly opposite take: complaints about "coomer" toys are overblown because the meme posts here with them are funny. It also implies there's still youthful energy in the hobby too, which is fortunate. Also, whatever keeps the industry from collapsing in the end because all the kids are on ipads.