Here is the King & Country retirement policy as discussed at my shop back in March.
When the question was posed, Andy gave the following reasons:
1. An item will be discontinued if he feels it can be improved
2. An item will be retired if the overall sales slump
3. An item will be retired as new products are released in order to free up warehouse space. One of the untold costs of an operation like Andys' is the simple means of storing the items in a warehouse prior to shipping. This is a very real cost for him and if he simply adds more products without retiring others his storage costs climb.
Now, retirement of an item is not completely set in stone because Andy has all of the masters and any of these figures/vehicles can go back into production any time he wants.
This being said, Andy is incredibly forward thinking in regards to this. The secondary market was a pleasant surprise to him and he really doesn't want to do anything to interupt this. Also, re-releasing previous items is kind of counter to the evolution of his range.
We had a discussion about this in Boston. Andy is incredibly smart and flexible in his approach to the hobby.