This is a real shame. It really did seem like a good product and with the advent of the popularity of D&D Miniatures and the encouragement of 4e to use miniatures, something like this would be a very popular tool.
Unfortunately, I don't see the manufacturing problem ever being solved. The fact is that oil prices will only increase, making plastics more and more expensive. If anyone was looking into the viability of such a product, I would think that finding an alternative to plastics would be the most workable solution.