some payware thoughts

I think its mainly because payware addons aspire from Flight Sim enthusiasts, as do their websites which then grow, and so does their following, until there is a huge name brand for payware addons. Along their way, none of them have previously acquired any knowledge of business management, product life cycles or promotional business, so they would remain oblivious to any of the ideas put forward by yourself. All they know, is that they've produced a product which they are selling for a certain price - after that they don't really care.

😉

I think your answer lies in the small size of the companies producing payware and the small number of sales they can expect for any given product. You mention a figure of 9,000 copies as an average for an add-on aircraft. When you consider something like the Doom franchise which has sold tens of millions of copies that 9,000 seems pretty paltry. Also I think you are wrong about a 2 year old product not being as good as a new one. If these were stand alone products I might agree with you, but they're not. They all have to integrate seamlessly with a product that is now almost 4 years old. There is also probably some truth to the conclusion that FS2004 software developers are not the best businessmen.