@Arei:
Though I do wish they would stop focusing on merchandising and just stick to DVDs. You're totally right, the quality is shit compared to what it used to be. Manga aside, the only anime merch most of us buy are DVDs, they should put their highest quality work into them. Forget about bringing over and translating art books, licensing plushies and toys and action figures. Yeah we would have LOVED AND APPRECIATED if you guys had done that 10 years ago, but you didn't, and internet shopping began to peak and ways to more easily and affordbly obtain our most desired merch straight from the source emerged, so when you FINALLY decided to license and bring over merch we all had grown used to ordering it, and now no one cares anymore D:
The decline in DVD quality isn't because of a focus on merchandise, it's because the companies think that they're selling products to people who don't care about quality. I'd buy DVDs if I like the dub or the subs were good, but oftentimes we find fansubs or (heck) even fandubs to be more accurate or natural to the ear than what the companies churn out. This wasn't always the case, compared to a decade ago when maybe 2-3 dubbed anime from a particular region (6-9 on air in total) came out per year, now we've got five or six times that coming out akin to a machine. With the same actors featured in more or less comparable roles, the performances become generic and mistakes become common and uncorrected. It's like there's a huge disconnect between the professional subbers, scriptwriters and the members of the anime community, years ago people like that were an integral PART of the community (people like Mato, AK_of_Troy and I think stephen).
This is becoming more and more common because the companies cater to those people you talk about - those who blindly buy everything. So they increase the volume of product, knowing there is a guaranteed sect of fans who will buy it no matter how cheap it is, and we get floods of awful stuff on our shelves.
I don't agree it's merchandise that's the problem. Artbooks/calendars/trivia, yeah, because the information in those kinds of items spread like wildfire through the internet, so it's worthless to buy them. Figurines and action figures though are rarely brought, and those are usually of exceptional quality, but the problem is they're so expensive few people are willing to buy them.
My own pride and joy resin kit was in the $800 range, not cheap, most people would not be willing to shell out that much for such a product (though the quality is clearly there).
@Arei:
It's all just too late. I do think there will always be a place for anime in our society, but they didn't give us what we want when we wanted it the most so now we've grown accustomed to not having it and getting it elsewhere so now they they've finally started pushing anime to even more mainstream levels, no one gives a shit.
I think mainstream would be the worst case scenario, TBH. Looking at what happened to video games and movies, with both trying to push the boundaries of "experiencing your entertainment" as far as they can go, the literary creativity and gameplay goes down the toilet as the movies/games become more visually stunning.
My idea is the reason gaming became so popular is because it was able to explore storylines filtered out by Hollywood - notice how almost all anime or VG adaptions to the big screen end up with tons of unnecessary changes? Those changes are inevitable because of the culture of mind in Hollywood, something that's does not exist in the video game culture. This is why gameplay has become so simplified…video games didn't become mainstream because of gameplay, they became mainstream because they had different kinds of stories. Of course, this freedom also allows really bad fiction to become games, I think of Bayonetta's storyline.
But I digress. I think if Americans started to have influence into what kind of anime is made (due to what they buy), they'll reduce the authenticity of anime as a lens into Japanese culture. It'll reflect American desires and become less unique, and interesting IMV.