Totally agree with you. And the only answer I can ever come up with is that the people who buy his stuff are ever so slightly mis-wired.
I mean...Christ. I have listened to people slag the product off them admit to having bought more recent stuff than that which they slagged off. That's just absolutely, umm, beyond WEIRD behaviour. I'll never understand it.
It's not hard to understand if you view participation in the ASL community as more than just playing. How many threads, posts, debates, and other discussions have revolved around people's ability to clip corners, sort counters into complex organizational schemes, purchase multiple copies of games, store and transport mapboards, scan, collate and organize scenario cards, etc.? You can't see that much time and energy spent on these tertiary activities without concluding people enjoy the acts of acquisition and organization. From that perspective, the quality of the components revolves less around playability or even comprehensibility. There is satisfaction to be had just getting and keeping the stuff. Like the fellow with the well-stocked garage, has all the latest power tools, a whole wall of hooks for his various devices, but never gets around to fixing or building anything.
