I am a big fan of Figarti's products, and a person who counts Rick Wang as a friend and was honored to have James Wang as a guest in my home at the 2007 Symposium. I am very impressed by the development of Figarti's products over the short 5-6 years of their existence, and consider their vehicles the best in the industry and the best of their figures to be among the finest available in the hobby. I love the "shock and awe" pieces, and when the economy recovers, hope to purchase the Leopold Gun.
That being said, I agree with Brad that Figarti suffers from a lack of direction. When they do choose to run with a theme, like the "Vengence Weapon" V1 and V2 series, or the LRDG/SAS series, they do it well and have developed a following which permits them to sell out the series.
However, all too often, they release one really cool item, like the "Shock and Awe" Tiger, and fail to follow it up with the related releases that will generate a K&C type following and K&C type sales. Imagine if when the Tigers were released, they were accompanied by, or followed shortly by, all of the other vehicles one would expect to find with a Heavy Panzer group, like Hanomags, Kubelwagons, Prime Mover Halftracks, 88mm Guns, Krupp trucks, etc., at usual Figarti quality and prices? Those people who could afford a Tiger would have bought the rest, and the people who could not afford a Tiger would have bought some of the other, more affordable vehicles.
Rick has told me that he sees K&C as the "Mercedes Benz" (i.e. overall luxury product leader) of the Toy Soldier industry, and wants Figarti to be more like a "Maserati" (i.e. a more unique, handcrafted, exclusive and very limited production approach). This is all fine and good, but making disjointed, unrelated products that leave collectors wanting, but never getting, more, just doesn't make sense.
I think their U.S. and European Distributors would prefer a more uniform and regular approach, because they have created market share for themselves, and have not yet fully exploited it. That's the way I see it.