Toy prices and justifications...

After I commented on the recent Origins Power-Con exclusives here and on Facebook, I received a couple of PMs that criticized my stance for the exclusives.
I won't post the messages,  because they were sent privately and this post isn't about airing dirty laundry.

First: and I feel like I have mentioned this already, but I will repeat it to nip some fake news in the bud.
I do not have a beef with Val Staples, or any of the Power-Con people. I DID stop posting on He-Man dot org after Toyguru was being a dick and blamed me for the end of Mattycollector.

Second: While *I* don't like the Origins line, I can see some positive aspects there. The toys simply don't do it for me. I just wish we could've completed Classics. Both lines could've coexisted easily. Maybe when I see them in person, I can chamge my mind.

Third: I find the Power-Con exclusives prices borderline scalper prices. No matter how many times the "limited run" "small number of con exclusive" explanations you throw at me, my brain won't accept a $40 per figure when they look like  $2.99 toys.

And here lies the crux of the problem: No matter how I slice it, try to use fancy mathematics, Axii or Jedi Mind Trick the hell out of myself, I cannot justify spending $40 per figure of a new toyline that looks like it was made in 1982.

I know I'm not the only one who has these kind of issues. Some collectors have to do some fancy mathematics Jedi Mind Tricks and other sort of justifications to explain their collecting to their significant other.
On the other hand, *I* need to justify an item with a higher price tag.
In this case the asking price is a lot higher than my threshold.
But, if it were a Queen's Blade figure by Revoltech, I have more ways to justify spending more for it:
-discontinued line from roughly 10 years ago.
-Japanese import.
-ecchi nature of the line.

And even then, figures like Aldra, Branwen, Annelotte, and Cattleya elude me because their price in the secondary market exceed my threshold for them.

If these had been MOTUC items, the $40 tag would've made it easier to get. $50 per fogure would've been my threshold.

If you want them, excellent! I hope you can get them. These are simply not for me and no matter how much I try I can't force myself to like them enough to want them.

And this pretty much applies to all toylines I'm collecting.
As much as I like Terry Bogard I'm not going to be buying smk storm collectibles items. There's too many characters and they take way too much time to release figures.
Hell I'm even thinking of just sticking with Mortal Kombat even that would be restricted to Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 characters. No MK3 versions of the ninjas, no cyber ninjas, etc.
And with the competition between storm Collectibles and Sh figuarts to complete the Street Fighter 2 roster I'm leaning more towards SH Figuarts...  and that's because they have more characters available then Storm does.
This also applies to the super7 toy lines with Thundercats I'm already picking and choosing when they show Wave 3 of ninja turtles if there are characters that I don't care about unlikely to skip them. Between these 2 lines, the characters I need are about 10.
T-cats:
Cheetara
Snarf
Monkian
Vultureman
Slythe

TMNT:
Mikey
Don
Krang
Rocksteady
April
Casey

Oh look they were 11! I forgot about Snarf.

I've also being lucky enough that there aren't that many video games that I have to say like damn I need this... right now my only real ones are like Final Fantasy 7 remake and nothing else.  I mean I'd like to get the kakarotto  game but it's not like I'm going to pay $60 for it.