Children want villains for their heroes to fight and the Trek franchise never gave them that. Had they produced a Klingon Captain and two Klingon warriors and/or a Romulan equivalent plus Tholians, Gorn etc. The 70's figures might have gone further. Presumably it was the licence holders' fault if they didn't sell the rights to produce wider characters from the series.
Well, the old 8" Megos did do the Klingon in an early wave and then brown Gorn in Klingon uniform, followed by Bele of Cheron, a Romulan, a Talosian, Disco Mugato, a rogue Andorian, a combo quasi Ruk/puppet Balok figure and an original-to-Mego Neptunian, but sales kept dropping.
And, in 1989 and beyond, Kenner(?) encountered a bizarre phenomenon with their "Batman" lines. Although the original plan was to do
all the villains, as each movie or animated episode came out, sales of the Joker, Bob the Goon, Penguin and Catwoman were dismal. Suddenly, the hot sellers were Batman in a range of specialist Batsuits that had never even appeared onscreen. They watched kids playing, and they thought nothing of making Infrared Batman fight Arctic Batsuit or another Batman - and actually preferred
variations on Batmen than completing their sets with Riddler, Two-Face, Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, etc.
