My appreciation comes from how MTH is now working with dealers to make custom runs that you won't see featured in big catalog books. Dealers talk to their customers, and find out what road names and products they want to get made. So many obscure road names are now seeing layouts for the first time because of this.
Another nice thing, everything they announce gets built, not like catalogs where they "throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks" and then what gets cancelled. Also, the timeliness of how fast something arrives at your doorstep from when MTH announces it is nice too, 6 to 9 months has been my experience.
As for printed catalogs, how many of us spent the last three days online (some almost intimately 
...not creepy at all!...) with the Lionel catalog only to have half of it arrive in our mailbox in a week or two just to thumb through it for a little while and put it aside. At that point you've been there, seen that, and probable already placed your preorder.
With regards to warranty, if you have a good dealer they'll see to it that your warranty with MTH (or any manufacture) is honored in full with little hassle on your part. Just ask them about it, if you don't like their response, find a new dealer (there are plenty of good ones that sponsor this forum).
I suspect that in the future, Atlas would be interested in buying up more MTH as they are now vested into supporting their own products that share many of the same parts and electronics used in past, present, and future MTH offerings. There is this "WHAT IF" gang of folks out there that like casting doom & gloom to profess that MTH is one or two employee retirements or some other event away from closing forever and couldn't be happier about it.
