From the interview with Steve Walker, founder of Product Enterprise (link posted in another thread by airbond2), talking about the level of sales necessary to recoup the costs of tooling figures:
I'm sure those who've been participating on this forum for a couple of years will recognize how our community is evolving. At the start we were all collectors here -- just folks who liked to buy the same things. We'd advise each other on things like exchanging a badly painted figure. Some of us have since become customizers and repainters, and shared our discoveries as we go along. Cking's 1:4 Superman project has inspired others, including an intense 1:6 Quigley project that would never have been made commercially. Louie Tran doesn't visit this board, but here's a guy who has gone from custom repaints to clothing manufacture to 1:6 body design and manufacture, all catering to customizers. The GK community has many excellent sculptors who can capture licenses. Right here on this board, Les, customikey, murderofcrows, darkartist and others share quite a lot of how-to information. Everyone wishing for a figure (yo Cosmo!) should visit the Customs Gallery more often, just to check out the talent.
The desire for figures that will not support even limited mass production can be met in two ways: wishing or doing. Before long I believe we'll all be helping one another out. Not everybody has to become a sculptor or caster or painter or clothing maker. We need a few hardy souls to either develop the skills or identify talented freelancers -- to either do it themselves or "produce" a project -- and a willingness by others to pool some funds.
If you can dream it, you can do it. You can take that to the bank, because Wolfang Puck engraved it in the door at Spago!
....now can we please move on 
sorry man. Will do next time.
