Trumpeter puts out a lot of stuff, but some of it is disappointing

And lately it's all too expensive, I simply refuse to buy it any more... of course, it might not be Trumpeter causing the price spikes.

I enthusiastically purchased two of their early 1/24th scale aircraft kits, and was very disappointed with them.

Their later stuff seems to be much better quality, but the price just keeps shooting into the stratosphere. Their Swedish S tank was a nice example of cost/quality, at least in my opinion, and their early armor (Desertized Challenger is a good example) was a decent kit, and with the price/quality ratio gave the Tamiya selection a run for its money. I'm sure the rivet counters could find something to nitpick, maybe several somethings, but I picked up one on the cheap, and it looks nice to me.

Trumpeter seems to be trying to knock Tamiya off its pegs by flooding out new kits... but I still don't think they can match Tamiya for engineering for the price.

Tamiya's later kits are very nearly perfect, and I like the simplicity Tamiya engineers into its kits...

Trumpeter is giving a lot of stuff, but I just don't see a company that can compete with Dragon, Tamiya, and for price vs quality, even Monogram/Revell. They can't seem to find which slot to settle in.

If they're shooting to out-engineer Tamiya and Dragon, then they have a way to go.
If they're shooting to out-price Revell, then they are missing by a wide margin (look at the new Ju88 and Bismarck). If the outrageous pricing is the product of their distribution chain then they need to jerk it... and they could really whip up some interest!

For whatever my 2 cents is worth (which is probably not much)