Whew! Heavy lessons in economics, marketing and systems dynamics. While I think that all points mentioned *may* be contributing factors, I agree with Rod about this being the "bust" part of a boom-bust cycle caused by the structure of the retailing system itself, with stocks and flows throughout the system not being completely understood by anyone. Each player (HL, manufacturing plant, Reps, retailers, collectors, secondary buyers and sellers) sees a different part of the puzzle from a unique perspective. "Logical" attempts to influence the behaviour of this cycle from perspectives of limited knowledge of the system (i.e., *any* of the players) will probably tend to make things worse over the long haul. In the end, the best reaction to the current lull is probably no special action taken at all. Just keep on collecting and enjoying, and don't get too caught up in what part of the cycle we're in. For anyone interested, there is an very interesting discussion about this type of phenomenon in Dr. Peter Senge's book: "The Fifth Discipline"; check out in particular "The Beer Game" in chapter 3 of that book.