@Orph:
To be fair, Lucci was made many many many years ago. The techniques an paint style is different now.
Also, the artist/sculptor has grown and is able to more accurately capture the character. MAS has been relatively consistent, but look at his earlier Miku. Ajiken has a lot of ups and downs too. Ishiyama has been very consistent, ie Croc and SW Shanks. Takashi Fukuda has many flops.
I think the 1.5 ver or "the better figure first time around" is all on the sculptor then Megahouse. I can't imagine Megahouse saying, "create this figure but with flaws."
I second that.
The problem lies in their selection of sculptor, especially the one who sculpted Luffy.
Kudos to Megahouse for stepping up their game.
Kid, Killer, Shiliew are all excellent. And this Lucci 1.5 turns out to be a significant improvement over the original.
Is it MAS who sculpted the original one too? I quite like his sculpts. Jinbei, Marco and Enel are his great works. Apart from the original Blackbeard I think he did pretty good in sculpting Oda's characters.
Fukuda (Shiliew) and Ishiyama (Usopp, Kid) have stepped up their game too.
ATTM's Franky is taking such a long time to be finalized. I guess there are a lot of internal debates about how many accessories, poses they'll include and probably questions about his sculpt since his reputation isn't helped with that awful Luffy Sailing Again. Maybe he ended up doing it again from scratch due to not meeting "current quite high" Megahouse standard (I can't believe that I type this :D).
They shouldn't think about making any 1.5 version of Sailing Again Luffy. It won't help. Just ask Fukuda, Ishiyama or MAS to sculpt and we'll definitely have a better POP Luffy.
It looks like Megahouse does LISTEN to the fans. Dynamic pose? Checked. Good sculpt? Checked. Quality improvement? Checked.
Fix the box issue, the pre-order issue (unlikely) and they're good.
The latter issue I think is related to the fact that they have Asia and Worldwide distributors thus they try to limit the Japan version pre-order.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Meanwhile the ever promising Scultures Zoro...

Turns out to be another figure with disappointing painting job by Banpresto…
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Review here: http://ameblo.jp/engelleader/entry-11395436789.html[/hide]
I dislike the glossy paint Banpresto chose for this Zoro. Big Fail. He could be excellent if they used proper material. At least the material they used for Scultures DB Big.
Surprisingly Lucci is good.
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review: http://ameblo.jp/engelleader/entry-11395435595.html[/hide]
His color and painting could be the best of the bunch.