SilverWook said:

I hope you're right about them being prototypes, as they seem to be taking a giant step backwards in articulation.

Well, they've moved onto "Tiers" if you want. As of now, there are three.

The basic figures articulate like the old Power of the Force ones I grew up with: basically head, shoulder, legs. The "Basic" Black Series (normal size) figures articulate like their most recent series: head, shoulder, elbow, forearms, wrists, thighs, knees, feet, et cetera. And then the "Deluxe" Black Series (the 6.5 ones) have all kinds of articulation.

The annoying thing about this is that the very basic tier with the crap articulation costs about as much now as the older series figures that have as much articulation as the "Basic" Black Series figures do.