The purpose of a set like this should be conjuring up some fond memories of collecting in 1973. That, to me, doesn’t include caring about obscurities like the Milk Foam poster art. I would be fine with the titles used, if the series were reasonably priced and sold in stores. As it is, I won’t buy it at all. Instead I’ll spend a few minutes looking at original series packs and stickers.
I couldn't agree with you more, excepting that I still try to keep up on the new stuff, just for fun.
With regard to your analysis, I believe the collector market (and not just the card collector market at large that informs the parallels and such, but this specific WP hobby) has trained Topps what and what not to produce.
Wacky Packages Old School in its prime was a pretty good approximation of the classic Wacky experience, aside from a lack of Wax packs. And what I said about US training Topps, is that what immediately became evident upon release was, the stickers themselves, perhaps due to their ease of acquisition and plentiful number, quickly became "swill" and it became all about chasing sketches. A shame considering the quality and nature of the Old School stickers (they're amazing). And Topps responded by eventually reshaping the releases away from that original old school format and more to something that fed more of what Wacky collectors appeared to value, which wasn't the experience, but the chase.
I've always been on the other side of this, insofar as what I enjoy. I love the stickers and the experience, and I don't care all that much about the sketches or the chase cards.
Still, I understand what drives the hobby, and it isn't me buying one or two boxes of stickers to open and enjoy. It isn't recreating that original experience, because there's no need for anyone to spend $1,000 on THAT. It's hitting those adult collector notes that matters and gets adult collectors to pony up, as it were.
I certainly wish that it was in Topps' interest to do exactly what you say here. Create a wax-wrapped, kiss-cut Wacky experience. That would be fun. But perhaps even that would be an experience that would, like plugging in an Atari 2600 cartridge to play, wear itself thin rather quickly. But it's still what I want.
All that said, I do dig what they're doing with this new Flashback series. Oh, it's not my personal wish fulfillment with regard to format, but I'm here for it because if can throw a bit of my limited disposable income at this, I'm okay with that.
