Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net
There's at least a few games out there that have a "universal" system, where each time you buy a new genre book you get the rules again too. White Wolf used to do this (don't know if the new WOD still use this model). Palladium does it. BRP did it. So if you only want TMNT, you just buy TMNT; no need to buy any other books (except the endless splatbooks). If you want Vampire, you just buy Vampire. And so on. So it works for some people/systems.
'Course, I don't know how well those companies are doing financially. I suspect Derek is right in that most of Hero's problems stem from the crappy economy. They certainly aren't the only company out there right now, in any industry you can name, that's hurting.