Its possible that the revised 3025 mechs are low priority considering the current era of the game leaves them in the past, with the reseen between 3025 and 3145. Those that were around for the originals probably have a ton of them, or if they wanted them probably purchased them since they became the unseen. It is likely that those that started after 3050 simply do not care about these mechs. Then we have MWO that has created their own versions of every mech they have added, which has covered a number of those unseens.
The increasing metal mini prices are not likely the favorite thing of any player out there. Not everyone is seeing increases in their ability to purchase unnecessary items such as minis. While BT has always been cheeto and penny counter friendly, people do not stop at the game tables of those using paper counters as readily as they do with a table full of painted minis.
Part of the problem is that the demand for minis is low due to the lack of urging by the devs or the game to buy, buy, buy. Hell, IIRC, the Kurita combat manual suggests that you cannot have more then 1 of a particular model of a mech, which can be an issue if you only prefer a particular variant of a mech. AS helps to increase the number of minis that players feel the urge to purchase though. Doing so helps to increase sales to those that are already fans of the game, thus reducing the need to find new blood to make sales in order to turn a profit. However, the increased costs are going to impact those same players.
If there was a steady supply of starter boxes then I might be able to get someone to buy one. Seeing the boxes being listed at $500 or some other crazy nonsense is not helping. Its not helping becuase not everyone goes to game shops to look for stuff and a $500 intro box is going to scare even a hardcore 40k player off. If there were starter boxes on the shelf I could at least show it to those players that buzz around our game table, and those that are willing to talk for a few minutes. I hate seeing them look around at the walls because I know that they are looking for product that isn't there.
The main issue is not a handful of minis that may not be relevant to those that are new to the game. The issue is getting those box sets rolling out to the shops.