TL;DR: I don't disagree with your post as much as I'm confused by it.
Sadly, there's not enough interest in my local area to warrant competitive play nor is there enough interest even among the people who do play the game to encourage a steady series of casual games at an LGS. Make no mistake: this is a result of your own doing when you made this a rich man's product with your high-entry, low-return price point.
Here's where your post first runs off rails, for me.
HIGH-ENTRY
There is no comparable game for which the entry bar is lower. I pay less for X-wing than I would for any other tabletop miniatures game, both because the game itself is reasonably priced ($15-$30 for typical expansions, with discounts of about 30% typically available online) and because I'm able to purchase exactly the units I need to field the lists I want.
LOW-RETURN
Your metric for "return" is apparently resale value, which also doesn't really exist for any comparable game. The entire game is still in print, if not immediately available, and each expansion contains a set roster of pilots and upgrades; why would you expect components that can typically be bought new for a set price to acquire a resale value equal to or greater than the initial purchase price?
Of course FFG could have created a secondary market by randomizing the pilots/upgrades included in packs or by rotating through blocks (both of which Magic does, very successfully), but they didn't. As noted above, I consider that an advantage of X-wing rather than a drawback: I would hate to have to buy a case of X-wings (or perhaps X-wing pilot boosters) in order to find the rare Wedge Antilles pilot card--or, worse, have to pay the equivalent of several boosters in order to acquire him through a secondary market.
Moreover, leaving the world of tabletop miniatures games, I'm not sure it makes sense as a criterion for merit. If I go out to my FLGS and buy a copy of King of Tokyo or Suburbia or Power Grid, do you really expect to measure the value of each game by the secondary/resale market associated with it? If I go to a store to buy a new video game, should I do so with the expectation that it's an investment that will appreciate? What about books, or movies?
To me, "return on investment" is not a particularly meaningful concept in the context of entertainment. The secondary market for collectible card games is the exception, not the rule.
So imagine my dismay at the realization that a company that prides itself on the (self-defeating) philosophy that with the right amount of cash, anyone can buy any product directly from their company has embraced the idea of marketing a wholly unplayable element next to an important element of their game.
Again, the CCG model is an exception to a fairly well-established rule. You presumably wouldn't argue that when I buy a bag of rice at the grocery store I should wait until I open it to find out whether it's white rice, arborio rice, or wild rice; I doubt you'd argue that I should buy a car and then wait until the purchase is finished to find out which color and trim package I received; I hope you wouldn't say I should buy a piece of property and then go look to see if it's a common duplex, an uncommon single-family home, or the ultra-rare mansion.
The usual economic model is that when I purchase goods or services, I have a reasonable idea of what I'm purchasing. In fact, it's often actionable if I purchase goods or services and find out they're not what I expected. So how is it a self-defeating philosophy to offer a box that contains what it says it contains?
$15 for 1 ship vs. $15 for a package of miniatures in another game system like HeroClix or the previous Star Wars Miniatures game is just outlandish on its own…
It's really not.
...but then to add a $60 less-useful component that also comes with a needed element for the established game is just insulting.
...I'm completely disappointed that you rammed the expectation I as a skirmish player would have to either miss out on an important element for the version of the game I prefer or give you money I can't spare (4-6 smaller ship boosters I would use, or 1 I would only use half the elements of) down my throat, and the throat of every other X-Wing player.
And here's where it really runs off the rails: as others have pointed out, you're not required to purchase the Transport at all. You can proxy the cards you want or borrow them, or you could even trade for them or purchase them from other players--look at that, engaging in precisely the secondary market you wanted!--or you can simply not have them, because the game isn't somehow lacking or less complete without those upgrades. There are competitive squads that don't include any of them, and that will very likely continue to be the case for the whole of the game's lifespan.
What you're actually upset about, I think, is the fact that you want these things, but you don't want to pay for them--and I don't say that to denigrate you somehow. I don't talk about it much, but there have been parts of my life where I've been desperately poor and even briefly homeless; I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to be able to afford to waste money on things like X-wing now. But "I want that thing, but I want to buy it for less than you're charging" isn't meaningful to the world in general, and it's even less meaningful when most of us consider the asking price a fairly reasonable one.
In fact, it's an idea that's even more bizarre than the idea that "it would be better for me if you would sell me a lottery ticket for the thing I want, rather than the thing itself"--which is essentially what you imply earlier in your post. I just… don't understand why you believe these things, and I'm genuinely curious how you continue to believe them in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary.
