where would the crane be in that layout?

Here's my theory: When Stern came out with SMVE many here on Pinside, but also distributors at tradeshows, got upset about the Premium pricing of what basically was a rethemed Pro. At the EAG show Gary had to explain their reasoning to everybody. I'm not saying I had any influence, but I did tell him that if they would have named the game a Premium Vault Edition, it would probably had seen less discussion, or disappointment regarding the pricing. I recall soon after the word Premium was added to some of the promotional images of that game.

In order to avoid a response similar to SMVE, they're now telling everybody upfront to not expect a Pro price on this game. Maybe that's all there's to it. And then they figured they could probably milk it more by doing an LE and SLE as well. Based on the people that say they ordered one, it works.

Haven't had a chance to listen yet. Will do so later today. I just recalled what happened in January as it seemed sort of related.

I was actually thinking the same thing. If they would buy the game back for costs + shipping within 18 month, in theory you could own it for a year, have them pick it up again, get paid and it wouldn't cost you a penny. Pretty sure that won't happen, but it did make me wonder.

As for when the market will correct itself: as soon as a manufacturer that can build a fun and challenging game at a reasonable price in high quantities with a proper distribution network. The operators market is up for grabs. First one with a game that costs less than Stern's Pros and makes more money has a future.