I hope you all don't mind me saying something that everyone else has said before and will say again . . . after all, the way we influence a company is with the volume of opinion, which is created in a civil society by having lots of people say the same thing.
In any case, to Piratecat:
I think you're partly right, but I also think we both know that the situation is more subtle than you say. D&D is a depletable product, because books get lost, maimed, or destroyed (as we've seen on this very thread), and new people pick up the game. Most importantly, I think a lot of people get bored with the same old thing and desire a new game, or new supplements for the game they already play. I think this kind of business is enough to sustain a roleplaying company. Honestly, if Gilgamesh can still make money after five thousand years, then there might just be hope for the same ol' edition of D&D being successful.
Excellent story hour by the way! I live in Boston, can I join? : P
To jasamcarl:
First of all, playtesting is practically done for you thanks to all the bright, energetic people out there slaving away to make their games better. I'm not saying that it's easy or that it doesn't cost money, but what I am saying is that there's plenty of very good games out there that sell for that cost and less. Anybody ever play a game by those wacky Cheap Ass Games people? Remember that my point was that they would publish the revisions for $10, and still make plenty of money on those beatiful setting books and other supplements. These would obviously not need to be hardcover or in color, so the publishing costs would be small, by comparison. Given that the cost is likely in publishing more than development for this sort of thing, I think the savings would turn out to be pretty substantial.
Secondly, I agree that not everyone does think like me; I was merely introducing an obviously false assumption for the purposes of arguement . . . I spose it is a kind of egotism for me to assume that the world would be better if everyone did think like me, but is that so wrong? How am I supposed to respond when people say that if everyone thought like me something bad would happen?
Thirdly, I believe, pretty strongly, that usually the price of products is influenced more my market forces rather than the costs of the materials themselves. I don't know how much Wizards could charge for D&D and still make money, but economists usually say that the price of a product is determined not by the costs of making it but by what the market will bear. That means that if everyone demanded cheaper games or refused to pay, we'd get cheaper games. But that's irrelevant, you're wrong in a much more provable way: My point about what I'm willing to spend revolves around core rulebooks only, as I've said in two seperate posts. If I had the money (which some of 'me' would if everyone thought like me since some people have more money than I do), I would spend more money on supplements and settings material.
I'm sorry if I'm gettin snippy here; I think I'm being more than polite given that people are either insulting me or badgering me about opinions I don't really have in the first place.
Sheesh, I started this thread to say something good about 3.5e with regard to the SRD, whatever I may think of it otherwise. I guess people have trouble with complex opinions.
-S
. Though for me the issue is more if I'll continue playing and if I want the aesthetics of it than if I believe that Wotc is releasing a quality product. I have no doubt that the new version will fix problems that I had not even realized were there 
