Yeah, because hasbro isn't known for double, triple, and quadruple dipping on characters and sculpts... honestly, I want to see the damn film before I start shelling out that kind of jack for these figures.
Imagine if you went nuts in '99 buying up kid Anakin, watto, and jar-jar figures before the movie was released. Gotta get 'em all. Gonna be so cool. Gotta be "first!" even though I don't know shit about the plot...... Then you'd have felt like a real chump after seeing that steaming pile of a film. Good lord, even to this day, you can't give those figures away.
SW fans are known for impatience, willingness to throw money away for no reason, and complete fanboy insanity. If I had the SW toy license, I'd put together a release strategy that wrung even cent out of the retarded fanbase, and step one would be putting out inferior figures early so that around the time the movie drops, you can put out better ones, and they'll all feel completely compelled to rebuy, lest they feel like "not a real fan". Checkmate.