I'm not sure you do as much as you think you do.
Looking at classes, races, and monsters - there's already almost as much released for 3pp use by WotC as there was in 3.x. Before the release of the psionic, Epic, and Divine rules into the 3.5 SRD, I'd say the 4e SRD is pretty comparable. Sure, I'd love more of course. And I *really* hope the psionic makes it's way in, but there aren't major SRD limits on campaign settings.
Well, I'm not going to get into a comparision since that way lies edition wars, IMO, but I will say that the drop off of SRD support during the 3.XE era was a huge disappointment and probably led to much of the glut since a more narrow arena of options led to many products all about the same things plus many products that diverged from the growth of D&D (in that time) rather than being easily integrated. Looking at the 4E SRD as its own animal, clearly there are things lacking both in content and in timeliness, based on your own previous description of how things currently stand. In that we agree, at least.
Biggest issues that I see are:
a) Core classes you can't address, but I don't see addressing all of the core PC classes as essential to campaign settings. It's nice dressing to discuss how wardens and invokers and swordmages might appear in your setting, but even addressing *any* of the classes directly isn't necessary for campaign material
I have no doubt the audience becomes increasingly less likely to shell out for something with each thing that is omitted, as people realize that their own particular favorites aren't inlcuded as integral to a setting.
b) Magic items. Unfortunately, the core books had a VERY sparse selection of magic items since most of them were presented in the Adventurer's Vault (I even consider it the 4th core book) and weren't added to the SRD. But again, I don't see needing to address specific WotC owned magic items as an essential part of any campaign setting.
I wouldn't doubt here, either, that the less of this integrated to a campaign setting, the fewer people who would be interested in purchasing it.
What is currently available in the SRD is definitely enough to create many campaign settings. In fact, I have two I'm considering cleaning up and releasing over the next few years, and even those don't directly address everything already in the SRD.
If they even exist, it would seem that there must be a lot of settings in the same unreleased holding pattern. How many 3PP settings, that aren't simply generic crossovers, have been produced? Have any been produced strictly for 4E?
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to argue that WotC shouldn't add more to the SRD (I'm on the uninformed opinion that they should release everything, but that's just me). I'd love it if they released much more. However, I certainly don't think they haven't released enough that many publishers couldn't make many settings.
I think the proof is in the pudding. I think if there was a demand for real settings and if 3PPs felt that they could put out settings under the GSL with the state of the 4E SRD, we'd already see a lot of them. I simply think the combination of a lack of demand and a lack of support through the GSL and 4E SRD has reaped what it has sown (whether this is by function or default depends, I suppose, on whether or not you believe WotC knows or cares what has resulted from their licensing shift).
After all, 3.x saw a large number of great settings, yet the only material opened up by WotC after the initial core rules was the niche stuff most publishers ignored anyway.
Given the differences between the OGL and the GSL there obviously isn't a direct 3.X/4E comparison so I am thinking it is fruitless to follow this line of thinking.
Getting back to your original statements, though, regarding 4E, it seems clear that not much 3PP stuff is actually being produced, not much seems to be in demand, and that there must be reasons. As far as our agreement or disagreement, we seem to agree there is a obvious deficiency in support but you seem to believe it is not one of the casues of the dificiency in 3PP production. So, I have to ask, how would you explain the dificiency in 3PP production?
