New Mattel Creations project confirmed (we don’t know what)

Again, really not how this works. It's not a question of lowering the price to what "consumers will pay for that item" it's a question of clearing shelf and floor space for incoming new inventory. Obviously there are figures that sell better than others, but overall Target was likely way in the black on each Legends series just on preorders alone (let alone eventual in-store sales) and stores clearancing out the final inventories of Chyna (to use your example) has no bearing on that.

To use a specific localized example: Currently at my target, there are about 7 Lance Archer figures that have been sitting on pegs for a few months, through 2 restocks of Legends 14 figures that all seemed to sell pretty well through initially. Said Archers are still at full price, while the final Chynas left are clearance at $9.99. By your logic the Archers should have been put on clearance long before Chyna was. However, since the store likely has incoming Legends 15 inventory to put out (likely with a back to school/Fall reset) the Chynas were clearanced to clear the shelf space.