Personally I think this is exactly the kind of product they need to be producing to get the muppets on track.
Instead of producing low quality, generic dolls they are producing a quality replica.
Unfortunatly Disney is put in a catch-22 with the muppets. The product is in bad shape right now and i think no matter what they do, the fan base won't give them credit.
If the muppets fail, it'll be because of disney. If they make a comeback it'll because of their own ability.
I usualy only post so often on message boards mainly because internet communities seem to fall into one of two categories. They are either so pessimistic you wonder if they like anything, or they're so optimistic that you could present them dirt and they'd worship it like a god.
Personally I think this is a solid idea. It's worked for Star Wars and ironically has been one of the things Disney has done right over the last 8-9 years.
Now creating a bad, half effort puppet would cheapen the muppets. Creating a high end collectible, that captures the essecense of the product and is what many fans have always wanted is a nice idea.
Whether they pull it off, i don't know. But if any brand could do this project, it's Master Replicas.