In case you haven't heard, Reaper started making Bones these paint-able miniatures. They skew heavily towards fantasy, but they have some modern & sci-fi in there that Star Wars customizers may be interested in.
They have a new Kickstarter, and again, it's mostly fantasy but it's a butt-load of miniatures for a great price.

Thanks Jak and crazybirdman;
excellent links!

(@jak, yup - that's a perfect sarlacc for Battlefront proxy-ing)

I backed this KickStarter, and so should you.(waves hand)

what you get for $100 is pretty nice.

you can go in for a buck, and then buy what you want

You'd do $20 Koba? Better man than I, Gunga Din ....

@surf -
I hear you, Surf - it's getting harder and harder to find ways to fuel the hobby - I sure can't eat minis hehehe
(if I plant minis in the ground, will they seed and sprout into a minis tree?)
around a $20USD pricepoint, I am saying that value proposition needs to be better than the present value propositions
$20USD for 117 miniatures is a decent value proposition.
$100USD for 100+ unpainted, unbased miniatures... that is a little harder to take. (the hidden costs? Time, assembly, painting... all fun, but all of which add up).
A lot of minis options are increasing the price barriers - they're going up beyond that $20USD barrier, which I think,
sure, the 'niche market' avant-garde angle has worked for 'luxury' goods before, but, I don't think it will work for that market.

So, what I'm sayin' is, price stuff into the more affordable range - and if net margin is still 183%-200%+, it's golden.
Think of all the minis and 'pop-culture' stuff, it sits there with a patina of "that's too expensive, I'll wait for sale time" dust,
(I've dusted my fair share of stuff I've seen sit there for 9 months, then all of it gets cleared and put on fire sale, and it's gone in 2 days)
which then gets put on fire-sale... a lot of that would be avoided, if the per-unit price was lowered, or if some took a hit on ridiculous margin expectations (in excess of 1700% return per unit? what the?).

I digress,
But, if you have 5 people (yourself, and 4 friends who can put the money on the table for a shared interest),
suddenly, you're each only in for $20USD and BOOM, a decent value proposition (the optimal breakeven per unit point for those offers, is $18.13USD for 21 minis).
That's how we used to go in for Kits or for Boosters by the brick, that and those tournament release nights .

Luckily though, theres a whole lot of other options for people to game-
pepakura/papercraft miniatures, they're ostensibly the most cost-effective way to game
A person could make a lotta-lotta minis for $20USD that way.
If only CNC'd or lazer cut plasticard 34mm minis (like those old SW:Attackix game or pirates of the spanish maine) were more of a thing. those were GREAT, really cheap, lots of fun.