Stumpy
I think the sour economic downturn may be alot more to blame than any of our comments. remember there are also no Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) train sets this year too, which is a first for as long as I can remember, even in the crap economy of the early 90's they still had them.
I also think that if people liked what they saw last year they would have bought them anyway like in years past, now maybe thats a stretch as I have to wonder how many people purchasing the Sam's sets were destine for the Xmas tree and how many were destine for the paint booth! Its possible Sam's over-estimated the appeal a light laden locomotive and cars would have, or maybe there were more far garden railroaders than xmas tree set buyers picking these up every year, the fact that very few members here bought any of these sets may have left alot after Xmas, but did they sell off the remainder after Xmas? I dont recall there being any sales noted.
I suspect they did sell off the set they had last year, despite our ire about light-up bug haulers, but that the down turn in the economy, which was apparent fairly early in the year, led to the decision that marketing a set this year may not have been economicly viable in this economy, so they dropped it for this year.
OSH did the same. And OSH set always sold well. but in telling change, last years set, which previously had always sold for $99.95, were an almost full MSRP of $199.95, twice the price! and not surprisingly they didnt sell well, there were alot left over, but in another change from previous years, they didnt red-tag them on the 26th, instead they trundled them off to a warehouse for this year, and indeed the only sets (only a few) I saw at OSH this year, where the identicle sets from last year, and at the $199.95 price yet again, and indeed they were left overs from last year. I wonder if its also possible that Sam's couldnt get the sets at the same price as previous years, that also could have been a big factor in their bottom line.
Anyway thats my take on it.