The more I think about it the more I settle on the theory that maybe Takara are just bowing to shareholder pressure to reduce manufacturing cost and increase sales, which is what every company's shareholders want.

The prices at HLJ for the PP line are much lower than the LG line equivalent. If they want to increase their market share with domestic kids at the expense of a handful of foreign collectors then making the toys cheaper is probably the way to go.

Also jacking up the price of MP Dinobot probably helps the bottom line. But I still think that toy has much higher development cost and QC cost than an average MP.