But I agree with Janglad's point. If TKL, 60, 65% makes up most of the user base, it makes more sense to save this majority group $40 and to charge the minority 96/100% group an extra $25.
That of course assumes that R1 base kit would still be $140 today. Dixie full size kits are usually around $125 right?
I can get on board with ISO support in the base kit even though I don't use ISO, all depends on the % of ISO users. I don't see myself going back to 100% anytime soon so I'd rather have a smaller base set for $40 cheaper.
There is an elegant logic to making the base kit as inexpensive as possible while serving the most common layouts. It delivers real value to the most people.
It just shifts a lot of price premium to the purchasers of child kits. If the child kits were price efficient, it wouldn't hurt as much. But each child kit usually has an additional $10 overhead by the manufacturer for sorting. So if I purchased Addition, Aesthetic, Modern, and Numbers, I pay this overhead 4x, once for each child kit. In addition, child kit order quantities are lower and don't get much in pricing breaks compared to the base set. But going the other way doesn't make sense either. You cannot create a giant set and charge $200 for people to get in.
I just wish that if the base price increased by $5-10, they could add more compatibility saving some folks from buying a child kit (f13, 660 support, etc). Marketing wise, we perceive $99 as being much cheaper than $100. Dixie and janglad are smart. They have real market data to drive their decisions. I am just a guy in the peanut gallery so I'll shut up now.