Sorry, I didn't mean to discourage you. I just thought that a couple of the rationales you applied had fatal flaws in them, and distracted from your last point, which was much more on the money. I wasn't trying to be dismissive (though maybe a bit challenging). I love the toys and the mythos both, but in a way they are on two completely different paths... a sort of haptic, aesthetic path with my appreciation of the toys themselves, and the more conservative, clinical relationship I have with the fiction, inherited from my overly-serious childhood self.
I think that, as the fiction (or version of it, I guess) becomes more sophisticated or interesting, the more it justifies the investment of adult fans. The recent IDW comics are probably the best thing to ever happen in offical
TF fiction, so I'm pretty stoked about that.