Ya, lunchtimes are usually also either clear or some strange color. They show up occasionally on ebay, and sell for a lot. Just search ebay for -clear Optimus Prime-, or some such term, and expand the search to show completed listings. Takara said once that they know how the lunchtimes are produced, but can't do anything about it, so I would think they just bribe the factory floor managers. The interesting thing is that to make a complete Convoy, for example, they would need lots of different parts from different stages of the line, like the rubber tires and springs in the missiles. So just one guy working at the factory probably wouldn't have access to enough of the parts to make a whole figure without permission of somebody. Maybe they are test shots or promotional for executives or something.
Well the level of corruption in Chinese factories is legendary. Its not been unheard of that parts of orders or even entire molds have gone "missing" to be sold out the back door by unscrupulous factory owners. Toy companies regularly have to send supervisors overseas to check up on factories to prevent this sort of thing, but they are not over there all the time
( and while the cat's away, the mice all tend to play....).
If someone came along and offered enough pocket money to one of these owners, I'm sure it would be very easy for them to "request" the assembly line to work on something "special" for part of a shift--or look the other way while some completed product was put on a forklift into a truck.
Supposedly reverse engineering a mold is expensive. However I can't see how a HISS would be that difficult to do, it has what 8-10 pieces?
I don't think there'd be any re-engineering of molds......they'd steal them outright, or just used old and discarded one ( and they would modify them molds to produce fewer parts. Fewer parts equal less cost, and more profit. 3 point articulated knock-off toys anyone?)
The molds only last for a certain number of pressings before they are tossed--because the molten plastic is chemically corrosive over time to the metal molds. If they can get a several thousand more pressings out of a discarded mold, who cares if the parts that are cast are less then perfect, right? They don't, and its simply a way to make more money to them.