I completely agree. I would go out and buy more of the finecast stuff and the SoM monsters if they were cheaper. I feel if they did this they would have more sales and will probably make more profit in the long run.
They missed another trick with this. If they had amortized the cost of the switch to finecast over a longer period, then they could have capitalised the investment and made it appear in their accounts that they were more profitable this year while increasing volume to boost other market indicators as well.(amortized=spreading the cost over time/multiple items) Our problem is that GW view is that little Johnny has only a fixed number of birthdays and Christmasses per year and they get to sell one big item per pressie giving day and little Johnny's pester-power can easily cope with a 10% price hike two or three times a year. GW's problem is if Mantic et al ever get cool and Johnny's pester-power switches away from GW.