Maybe the trouble is getting managers who know how to make money?
I'll point an example I've used before when this conversation pops out: Nikon.
To celebrate year 2000, Nikon made a limited series of S3 cameras- originally from 1958. To quote one of the big experts: "It was quite a production to produce S3's again, as all the original dies were long gone, and Nikon had not produced a hand assembled camera since the F2 stopped production in 1978. Originally Nikon announced only 2000 of the chrome S3 2000. The camera proved so popular however, I am told over 8000 factory orders were placed before order taking was closed."
They didn't have a single worker who knew how to make a S3. They didn't have blueprints, and had to reverse-engineer the whole thing. And if you ever think a Colt's innards are complex, please take a look at the guts of a high-end mechanical camera.
But they did it, and it was a technical tour-de-force. Many camera enthusiasts turned to Nikon, not to buy the old fashioned S3, but the new products, safe in the knowledge that if Nikon was capable of making a 1958 camera all over again, they were among the very best, if not THE very best camera makers in the world.
All in all, a wonderful publicity stunt that paid off in spades, as Nikon is now the second largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world.
And they pulled the stunt two more times with the black S3 and the much more complex SP for 2005, so something tells me they felt the whole thing was a success, even if the S3s themselves were all sold at a heavy loss, as Colt would do with the Python if they had a smart marketing man. People in the know think that each NikonS3 2000 was manufactured at a cost exceeding $6,000- and sold under $2,000. If those figures are right, Nikon bought itself one of the best publicity campaigns for a niche market for a measly 3.2 million bucks.
But then again, at Nikon they are smart businessmen.
Edited to add: Regarding the smart approach, Nikon didn't pull the idea of reintroducing the S3 out of a hat. On year 2000, there was a big fad going on about old rangefinder cameras. People were spending unreasonable amounts of money in old Leica, Zeiss and Nikon rangefinders. So the people at Nikon grabbed at the opportunity to show the world that they could make them again. Any semblance with the Python fad going on for the last few years is merely coincidential.
So, in a nutshell: Colt could make new Pythons at say 3K per unit, sell them at 1K, and still make lots of money- if they were smart marketers. But they aren't, so they wont.
