Actually if I were at Maerklin I would be thinking about using this forum and other big ones (I guess at least one in the USA, and one in Germany) to do the kind of quick and low cost research I'm talking about.
You'd only be getting
uncommitted feedback from a very small slice of the whole consumer market, which is never a smart move in my experience.
That'll test your hypothesis about the all-knowing dealers
I find your attitude to retailers quite strange.
In the hobby market, the dealers usually have a very good knowledge of individual
regular customers and have a good grasp on which customers are actually likely to spend money and what they will be prepared to spend it on. In marketing terms that is very high quality data.
But re Modell-land and the 21480, you may be right about what happened, but they didn't reply at all to my polite question - a question from someone who has bought locos from them in the past, is on their mailing list and now wants to spend €1500 on one item. That's unforgiveable business behaviour in my book.
If you have been
out of the market for quite a while, that is not particularly surprising. Find another retailer who will met your needs.
Your tale is an unfortunate example of why I and many other forum members use German web retailers for buying new locos
Indeed, that is my experience as well.
