kristofferrer, I don't think your example wasn't a very good one as Gentei Wildrider is a rare and limited convention exclusive toy. The reason why exclusive toys are typically repaints (and occasionally a slight retool). Because they're manufactured in such small numbers and have limited distribution, it's not justifiable to manufacture entirely new moulds engineered from scratch for such limited production runs. They're also only available through limited exclusive means of distribution such as attending an event (e.g. convention), competition prize (either through merit or random draw), store exclusive (including online store exclusives like e-Hobby) et al.

Also, exclusive toys are sometimes organised by people outside of Hasbro/Takara; like TF fans (such as the Hartman brothers, Glen Hallit, Ichikawa Hirofumi, Akiyama Fumihiko etc.), in tandem with Hasbro/Takara - so they represent toys where the repaint/retool and characters are made by fans for fans, and not expressly for personal corporate "greed. A lot of these characters/toys wouldn't sell in the regular market because they only appeal to hardcore fans -- most more casual fans and kids wouldn't even bat an eyelid to toys like...
+ Road Hauler
+ Crosscut
+ Cybertron mode Beast Wars TFs (Timelines)
+ Alpha Trion
+ Fracture, Bug Bite and other Gobots
...etc.

Exclusives have recently also allowed some toys that were cancelled for release in the regular market to be made available to collectors as exclusives. It's not as nice as having them as regular releases, but it beats nothing. BotCon Dirge, Thrust & Thundercracker as well as Henkei Thundercracker, Skywarp and Gentei Dirge and Thrust are examples of this.

So I think exclusive repaints are in an entirely different league from other repaints, particularly what some might consider to be "frivolous" or "meaningless" repaints: i.e.: a repaint for repaint's sake just to milk more money out of fans. Like yeah okay, the endless numbers of black and clear limited repaints Takara do is pretty crazy, but the fact that they're limited (and sometimes chase figures) puts them in a different category from "Malibu Stacy with a hat" Transformers like say Activator Bandit Lockdown or the Mini-Con Sea Team in blue... how long did they shelf warm for!