Some food for thought:
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Lionel make most of their sales (by volume) on entry level starters sets and the less expensive items? These days that would include the plain vanilla products, Lion Chief, and the many licensed trains aimed mostly at the youth market (see them all in the catalogs). Lionel essentially subsidizes the higher end by massive sales on the lower. Those conventional Penn Flyer Sets, well, fly off the shelves.
Sure, there are the multi-thousand dollar trains in the catalog, too, and you know what? They sell also. Just look at this forum and places like You Tube. Read this thread with all the "I'm in!" for the new Acela, among others.
Bottom line: Those that talk about rich man's hobby, or Lionel going under, or it can't last (121 years and counting), are plain wrong.
Edit: And let me add a personal note. I'm a 99.9% conventional Postwar collector and operator with a 1950's style Lionel Display Layout. I don't buy those 4-5 thousand dollar trains. But that's my direction in model trains and a choice I've made. But others make different choices and that's what it's all about. Lionel gives us a myriad of choices to enhance the model train hobby on whatever level, or cost, we choose.
That's one reason why they're still here, as one poster likes to say incessantly, in Century 21. 
