Tamiya had released Panther, JagdPanther, Panzer IV, KV1 and KV2 all in the space of a little more than a couple of years not so long ago - all of it paid for by profits they made before everything went over the cliff. With the world economy is still busy scraping itself back up off the pavement, can you really blame them for rehashing old product rather than spend $$$$$$ on developing a new one

It is a pretty low investment / low risk way keep people interested and talking about their products, and as Jeff said - for every one of you who come onto these threads to denounce Tamiya for not spending a ton of cash to make you personally happy, there's many others who lusted after the old Leopard kits when they were younger, or had the pre full option Tiger and Sherman kits and subsequently ebayed them because they basic looking or didn't do much - who now might be tempted to come back to the hobby now that there's a 'better' version out there. As somebody remarked in a thread a while back, nostalgia can be a powerful marketing tool [:-]