Well I look at these concerns from two points of view, one as a gamer, and another as someone with a long history working the print industry. From a gamer point of view, I loved the boxed sets (and was my vote). I didn't buy every setting and boxed set, but I did purchase many - most of the Ravenloft boxed sets (2e and before), Birthright, Menzobarrenzan, etc. I never got a subscription to the Dragon/Dungeon magazines, and I think I only purchased one of the first Dungeon magazines, and I seemed to only ever purchase the Halloween issues of the Dragon magazine (because of my love of horror games).
From a print point of view, a long time ago, looked at the possibility of producing a magazine (not for gaming, but local tourism) and spent a good part of a year researching such a project. I even went to NYC and spoke to some small magazine publishers just to get some insight on the industry. OMG, the costs involved just to produce each issue (even for short runs, 1000 - 5000 prints) would cost tens of thousands of dollars just for each issue, which meant 3/4s of the content had to be advertising with full page ads somewhere around $1500 to $3000 per page (who among gaming publishers could afford that?) Unless you had a solid number of advertisers, it was impossible to release a magazine. Then you have the ckicken before the egg problem. How do you acquire paid advertisers for a magazine with no history nor defined circulation - at least during the first year of publication. I'd need a half million dollars in money just to try and get a magazine into circulation and there's no guarantee of success. Later I'd learn that the magazine distribution system was cut-throat, corrupt, and had mob ties. Lesson learned, stay out of the magazine publishing business.
Last year, about this time, a larger RPG publisher was inquiring about the possibility of releasing a boxed set that might include a GM screen, a 96 page, soft bound handbook, some dice, some cardboard, punch out tokens for minis, and a single 24 x 36 inch, full color, folded map - for a total production of around 20,000 boxes. Although the price per unit came out to about $7, that was with a $30K+ investment. I work in the print industry and have ties with print companies that only do work for other print companies, with the intention of farming those services out and still earning income - I can get prices that someone not in the industry cannot. The project hasn't come to fruition, but I figure the quote I provided, though very competitive, was inordinately high in cost.
The budgets required makes successively releasing a magazine or a boxed set as almost excessive in cost. Realistically, I don't think either is pragmatic.