1. Disagree with you on this point, depending on what you're looking for in ARAH that is, and depending if one is a completist. Most of the loose items are still relatively affordable for their age, when put next to Modern Era counterparts. Keep in mind, this was an era in which Gi joe had a much bigger worldwide distribution, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone came up with statistics showing that product was made in 10 to 100 times the amount that Hasbro makes nowadays. Like I said, it all depends what you're looking for, unless you're into sealed ARAH items from 82-90, then yes, I agree with you totally that the ARAH stuff is more expensive to collect. It also depends where one is geographically situated, so you beeing here on the boards, is perhaps the first big step in learning where to buy from and do some interesting savings on the long run.
2. 90's stuff rocks in my books. If you were into superheroes, superfreaks, monster figures (and monstrously disproportioned figures by extension LOL), then this was your the era that it felt good to be alive. I know I was! 90's era gave me my Kenner ALIENS and Toy Biz stuff, and I'm still as happy as I was today.
3. The 25th does pay good tribute to ARAH, but if there's one thing I have to say about it, is that it seemed to be more of an action figure driven line, then on vehicles. The end result: so many characters (and repetitive versions) were made in such a short timespan. Per instance, without exagerating, in 3 years of 25th, one had the choice of buying ten different versions of Snake Eyes of Cobra Commanders, while still waiting to get a big vehicle be remade into plastic. In ARAH, it took 3 years before getting the V2 Snake Eyes, and another 4 years before getting V3. Oh and in 3 years of ARAH, the Flagg, the Hydrofoil, the Mauler (etc) were made amongst so many offerings. We're still waiting for most of those to see the light in ME, but I think that will never happen.
4. While I was one of the first to call POC "Pursuit of Happiness", because Happiness is an ideal I want to attain when collecting, and I felt at the time that POC wasn't quite there, I was wrong. POC was ME Gi joe at its prime height, regardless If I liked it or not. Unfortunately I lost total interest in Retaliation stuff, I even lost my initial enthusiasm to go see it when they announced that the movie was beeing postponed. I can't stand anything called Retaliation and won't support it because of this. Call me traitor, but Retaliation is not going to last anyway so I'm waiting for the nest best thing to happen to Gi joe.
