MZ704 the end of an age

My dear master Ent, I was concerned about your email, and I am sad to read about your disapointment and the one from Mornedhel too.
I got the MZ704 myself and indeed that changes a lot and my eyes are not what they used to be but I still see lots of details… Actually, I hope you won’t be upset at me but I passed along your concern by directly copying your post to Chris directly. He was kind enough to answer by the hour to provide some very interesting information. Here is what he says :

I am sorry about  Dieter’s comments on the new resin figure. I personally quality-checked every one of the new  704 figures and assembled and sprayed one of the figures myself before release and thought  that the detail  was much sharper than that on the metal figures. Admittedly, at first glance, the resin itself is hard to “read” because of its semi- translucent quality.  But once primed , the details stand out very sharply. I have had several very positive responses to the new piece. What were Dieter’s specific criticisms rather than that the figures were just “horrible”?
I admit that I did not see any of the Mz metal figures after production and wasn’t aware of this decline in standards. Sadly there is a distance between myself and the factory these days for various reasons and I am never sent samples . However, the resin project is entirely under my control and I was able to check both resin and metal parts.
As for not displaying the actual castings on the Mithril site and showing only the digital images, this was something done under my insistence. It is a sad fact that there is no-one at the factory who has any interest or ability to assemble the figures. I was seeing promotional figures put together with no thought given to how the arms etc should be properly attached , coarsely glued ( with the glue sometimes showing and no cleaning up done before assembly. These were a disgrace and were a travesty of what the assembled figures should look like . My only solution was to insist that they use the digital images.
They seem to have no concept of how to present the figures. A cursory glance at the website will show you some horribly painted figures , often with blobs of paint for eyes etc. I have urged them repeatedly to look on other sites to see how figures should be presented but unfortunately I have very little influence on anything these days.
I did not know of the price reduction . As I said above , I am not really part of the Mithril loop any longer.
I would be happy to hear from Dieter if he wishes to email me directly ( you can pass on my email address to him) and I am happy for you to share these thoughts