Here's my justification for being close to done buying new games as an operator:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lets-talk-about-pricing/page/2#post-4005267

It pretty much boils down to your points. At $5k+ it isn't worth it. I have 25 cent games that will hold their own with 50 cent games and the 75 cent new Sterns. Why spend $5k when I can put out a Firepower priced at 25 cents/play that I bought for $400 and earn close to what a new game earns at 10x its price? The Firepower is paid off in a few months, the new Stern...years. What it comes down to is the reason I occasionally spend the $5k is because I love pinball. If it was only about the coin drop I'd not be doing this at all, or I'd be running only cranes and jukeboxes.

Of course it is location dependent. At one of my locations the new Sterns earn good. At the other, nothing special and in particular Star Wars Pro has been a big bust.

I'm not saying I'll never buy a new game. But at the current state of prices and titles I'm certainly not shelling out $8k+. And games at $5k+ give me pause where in the past I was much more likely to open the wallet when new games were in the $4700 range. I don't know if your ideas would ever take hold, but I'm probably a person that would benefit and take advantage of them if they ever did.

This is something I think people overlook. If a game isn't out earning, you have to store it and it makes nothing. And the space to store it costs something. You can't leave a new game in the same spot for 4 years and expect it to earn. You have to move things around and keep it fresh.

People also overlook sales tax. I do things right, I collect sales tax on my coin drop and I pay sales tax when I buy new games. Some ops don't, that's their business. I also collect sales tax when I sell a game to someone in state. So I take almost a 10% hit on the coin drop right away. Then I have to give a portion to the location. Then I have taxes on the income. Insurance, my license, etc. Fortunately my locations are generous and their take is small because they realize that the pins bring them business.

Another thing people overlook is even at the best location, the employees are oblivious. If they are busy and a game is reported by a kid to be taking their money, they turn it off. Even if the kid is lying and just trying to get free quarters. I've come in several times to a game turned off and out of order with nothing wrong. The only reason it is off is because someone said it took their money so it was shut down. The location doesn't have time to mess with it when they are swamped so off it goes.

All the below isn't specifically directed at your comment, I'm just going to share some stories.

I have a fantastic relationship with my locations and I trust the owners with the keys. But that doesn't stop the 18 year old employee that is working behind the counter or a server from shutting down a game that is "taking money" when the restaurant is full. The last thing the employee wants to do is deal with kids whining about the pin taking their money. So they turn it off, even if the owner told them not to do that. Their main interest is to sell food while not getting yelled at, not babysit the pins.

Here's an actual conversation with a group of moms and a server:
Mom: "Which pinball machines work?"
Server: "They all work"
Mom: "We put money in three of them and none of them worked."
Server: "Did you press the start button?"
Mom: "Start button?"

So imagine the same situation when the party room is full of 30 screaming kids. That conversation often doesn't happen, instead the game gets turned off. Problem solved.

Then you have the kid that figures out how to shut off the games and does so. And the mom thinks it is funny and doesn't tell him to turn them back on. If it wasn't for a local patron seeing this happen, the games probably would have stayed off for quite a while on a Friday night, if not the rest of the night. Luckily the patron scolded the kid and turned the games back on. But the 18 year old employees probably wouldn't have noticed the games were off. And if they did, they probably would have left them off because they figured they were off for a reason.

People set things on games. The things don't get moved. Nobody notices, or nobody bothers to move it because they think it is there for a reason. So the game earns nothing.

Or how about the vent holes on a pizza box? When they are punched out, how big are they? About the size of a quarter. So if an employee is setting up boxes and doesn't clean up every hole that falls out of a box when folding them a kid finds the little round piece of cardboard. Where does that piece of cardboard go? In a coin slot. Game out of commission if they find two pieces or if the other slot gets jammed.

People don't think about the things above happening, but they do. And when a game is only making a few bucks a night, having it turned off kills a night's earnings.

Yes, every situation I mentioned can be addressed by the location owners during employee training. But turnover in the restaurant business is very high. People often don't get the message. And if they do, they don't remember or they weren't paying attention. The #1 thing the restaurant is trying to do is sell food. The pins are important, but they are less important than the people stacked up wanting to eat or carry out their food.

Sorry that ended up being a threadjack. We should have another thread for operator stories.

Anyway, I agree with your original point and I'm someone the operator program would interest.