I'm not knocking your thinking here Andrew. But there are some other considerations.
For example, on the Lehigh Valley railroad, the Cornell Red color was all over the place in shade and intensity depending on when the locomotive was built and painted.
For other railroads that may have been more consistent in their paint stocks, you still have normal color changes that took place over age. Then one has to consider that if the manufacturer's are basing their paint decisions upon actual photographs, there can be quite a bit of variance there too, depending on the type of film, the processing of the film and prints - and the light conditions of when the photograph was taken.
I've read where the train companies have done research to get actual paint samples from the product they are attempting to produce. But I would imagine this sort of effort also adds cost to the product.
Finally, for us, the consumer, the rises in train prices have been pretty dramatic over the past decade. But this is also a reflection of the increasing production costs. From the consumer view, the $40 train car from a decade ago to the current $90 cost is not the same thing. We expect much more for the increased cost.
Yet from the manufacturer viewpoint, that $40 train car is the same $90 train car... albeit with the added unfortunate production costs. And development / tooling costs for brand new items. Still, the price increases, however necessary from the manufacturing end, are still a shock to many train consumers.
Granted, there have been some products made that are just wrong. The Lionel Norfolk Southern waffle box car from a couple years ago or the current BNSF one are good examples. But these are traditional line products, and I guess that side of the market is a little more forgiving. Or simply likes the brighter colors as with the Lionel BNSF waffle box car.
The train companies are partly to blame here too: They've promised more realism and accuracy, and therefore consumers have come to expect that. Especially the high end scale consumers. There is now an expectation level of the products that will be hard to reverse. But the same could be said for the prices of these products... they're going to be hard to reverse.
Now some might counter, what about Menards? Well, Menards is a home improvement chain that happens to be making trains on the side. Their bread and butter comes from the home improvement retail revenues. And still, you read complaints about the accuracy of Menards products - which are a bargain in comparison, a fact which cannot be lost to the other train makers.
But I don't think anyone would be happy if Lionel and MTH decided to go into the retail chain store business, making their train business a side line to their main source of revenue. They could probably lower prices. But they would also be making far fewer trains.
Andrew, I'm sure the train companies want to please their customers. If they're reading the forum here, they're very aware of what pleases and displeases their customers. But we train consumers wanted more, and the train companies went overseas to lower costs so they could spend the money on new tooling and product development... which they have done. But now the factory is across the ocean and is a contractor for the train companies: A totally different arrangement from when they had their own production facilities.
It all reminds me of the old saying, you can't please everyone... which sure seems to have become the new motto of this century old 3-rail train hobby.
