WotC:Why are you doing this?

Oh, look a new Dungeons & Dragons product release.

It's to bad they don't, say, have an inexpensive monthly publication that people subscribed to that some one who was mildly interested in could read these essays in. Something, say around 100 pages that they charged about $35 a year for?

Oh wait, they had that. It was popular and people liked it, but it wasn't fitting in with their "new product model"

So now, all these essays (which I'm thinking might have been written with this "magazine" in mind, have to make some money, so they'll publish them in an expensive book no one will buy!

Isn't this kind of like the death of TSR?

Look in the rear view WotC. That bump was he other end of the ramp, and you can probably see still see the shark.