"Eric Takabayashi" wrote ...
> But back to the point: Why should a Japanese artist or company NOT provide
> their own quality product at a reasonable price, and make their move quickly,
> if they do not want to lose money or the market to unauthorized releases or
> pirating, and to maximize their own profits? 

And have you stopped beating your wife?

It can be expected that most companies will take what actions they consider
will maximize their own profits.  It therefore follows that they don't 
consider prompt release of all of their manga, translated, at a reasonable
price to be the best way to maximize their own profits.  Not that it follows
that such companies are correct.

> What are fans supposed to do

Buy what is available and 'like it'.

> while waiting perhaps decades as in the case of manga from the 80s, 70s
> henshin hero live action TV shows or 80s Nickelodeon cartoons, with NOTHING
> from the Japanese studios, while fans with a minimum of Japanese skills online
> or at conventions, or actual pirates knowingly breaking the law, are willing
> to give them what they want at a price they are willing to pay?

All of which provides a reason, but not an excuse.
 
> Has any of your reading about "Japanese artists" answered my questions about
> why Japanese video releases may cost a few times more than authorized foreign
> releases (when they exist), even bilingual or subtitled ones, thus giving the
> foreign customer something in their own language, PLUS the original, for much
> less than the price of the original alone? 

"Japanese video market sucks."

I presume that Japanese anime companies think that [smallernum] videos sold at 
[bigticket] net them more than [biggernum] videos sold at [reasonableprice].

Either that or they consider the whole video outlet business to be メンドい
and can't be arsed to make a proper job of it.