You may have answered your own question, Rich. Y&A will stop offering limited editions when it is no longer profitable. No doubt they want as long a run of LE profitibility as they can eek out over time.

I'm not sure a reason is that Collectibles are not an "in thing" as much as some of the key ingredients to collectiblity have left the HL equation. One is scarcity of the original, and two is price appreciation. The former connects to the latter. Scarcity (or rarity) began slippling with the commonplace manufacture of GLOWS and the increase of edition sizes to 10,000 - these events skewed the supply/demand curve that drove much of the line's excitement. Some people like having something that is truly a limited edition - its part of the attraction of collecting - indeed, it is, imo, part of the notion of 'Collectibity'. Nothing wrong with this. And some people also like having a limited edition whose price remains stable or better yet, increases over the years. Another prime reason for collecting.

As long as rarity and price appreciation were in place, the LE line was self-sustaining and could go on auto-pilot as long those factors were at work. Without them, the sustainability (profitability) of the line is less assured and becomes a balancing act between a decreasing collector base and production costs tied to volume. I think HL has done a pretty good job
at this balancing act over the last few years.

Has the number of LE buyers reached a bottom that is likely to remain stable? Hard to say. My sense is that Y&A is a little behind the actual marketplace in gauging what serves themselves best - though they've gotten better in reacting faster from where they were 4-5 years ago. No doubt they must make commitments out many months in advance which keeps them behind the marketplace curve. Wonder how they did for the Christmas season?

T