Wizkids discovered that there was a market for pre-painted miniatures with a reduced ruleset. It is quite different from the metal-miniatures market
That's true, and ideally that's how it should have gone. However, anyone that has played WK's games for any length of time knows the frustration that goes with having a rulebook that is 6 pages long, and 20 pages of FAQ's.
The reduced ruleset comes at quite a cost. Simplicity is not always the best option.
The pre-painted market is composed of people who like to create army lists and playing the game. It is the market of the casual gamer.
It also happens to be the market of the under 12 set, with Mommy and Daddy's money to spend so they'll get out of their hair for a couple of hours. This is, by it's very nature, the target of the CMG market. People with lots of money to blow, and very short attention spans.
It is a potentially big market. At my local game store, D&D minis is their number 1 seller outpacing even 40K (and they have a real healthly 40K crowd).
Not at all surprising, considering a CMG'er has to buy new sets every few months just to keep up with playability and new rules/figs/shiny new bits/what have you. This is the very heart of the CMG, and any other collectible game. You have to keep buying to stay current. This is something I abhor like little else.
Just because FFG is aiming at the same market does not mean that their business plans are the same.
To think that FFG will not take this route is laughable at best. You can't make a collectible game survive without it. It simply cannot be done. Again, it goes back to the very mechanics and habits of a collectible game, or anything else collectible, for that matter. In order to stay current, you have to get the newest set, newest fig, whatever it may be. It is a never-ending, check-writing, Rytalin-filled power struggle.