Too true. I hear Imagi Studios was even puzzled as to why Playmates continued to use their studio's TMNT movie art for the current line of figures.
Simple answer... they don't have to pay for new sculpts, other than some crappy plastic gadgets to slop right onto them. Personally, I wanted them to go back to the 5" 2K3/Fast Forward line, as it would make the toys more affordable (less plastic), but they didn't, and 10 dollar toys are sitting on the shelves.
TMNT has basically been vanquished from the toy shelves of all major retailer outlets, including Target and Walmart. KayBee is now completely gone(they had some crazy cheap deals in their final days) I liked the TMNT Fast Forward
figure designs/art(hated that incarnation of the show) And cant stand how the TMNT have pupils now.
Target still, at least in my area has them.. they seem to have cleared out the Minimutants after Christmas (at the only one I've been to), and they seem to be strongly showing support for the (over priced) 25th anniversary rereleases of the old ones.
And yes, I think that while FF was a poorly managed show the toy line was the best Playmates had done in recent years. The sculpts really looked like they came out of the show, and Splinter wasn't given a terrible cloth robe (like in the first release). But I will say this for Playmates... when the TMNT rebirth started up, they did a good job... much better than Mattel was doing at the time. Their lack of care for the Shonen Jump line of toys (Outside of YuGiOh... blehhh) was a disgrace. The Shaman King Line didn't even sell anywhere. The One Piece line didn't fare all that well itself. I would have killed to have seen BanDai handle the last one, but with the lackluster sale of Ultimate Muscle and Saint Seyia toys (the former, they even went so far as dumping the produced extras on Canadian Wal Marts who put them directly into clearance bins- which is how I got most of my collection- by mail of course), I don't think it would have done all that well.
But I still can't stress how Hasbro went from worst to first in a matter of a couple years. I mean, for a mainstream kiddy toy company. But then again, meh scuplts and all, I like those much better than MacFarline's ego stroking, non-movable statue "action figures" that would shatter into crumbs if you take it out of the package. I was really disappointed by their Simpsons line being Simpsons scenes featuring the same characters... and I was really really disappointed by their lack of an actual Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy figure for yet another Rainier Wolfcastle/ Milhouse movie version.