There are a lot of factors here, it also could be that Lionel's production capacity is in short supply and they are cutting what is being produced (I don't have any inside information, pure speculation, but giving the continuing shortages of everything thanks in large part to lockdowns in China, not entirely a guess). I agree with others, that if some LC 2.0 products are getting cut back it could be the price has just gotten too high. LC originally was introduced for a train set like introduction to command control, you need need to shell out for a legacy base, the sets were moderately priced, and you had a simple remote. Then (in my view) they decided to offer semi scale or unique engines like the O-6-0 t (I finally found a BEDT version I was looking for), they basically brought command control to the semi scale arena. Lionel legacy units are scale; an LC Big Boy can run on smaller curves and give someone who loves the look of a big boy but doesn't have the space the fun of running one at a reasonable price compared to the legacy big boy. Even on O72 the legacy Big Boy looks strained.
LC 2.0 is kind of to me like Railking from MTH, that was more moderately priced, was relatively decent representation of the prototype and had command control, yet could run on smaller curves.
And like the argument about 2 rail scale, yes, there are legacy units that can run on more modest curves..but again, like with my argument about the big boy, having a semi scale unit that can run on smaller curves allows people without big layouts not to have to limit themselves to switchers or small road diesels or steam. Same with semi scale freight and passenger cars as well. I have seen the LC 2.0 implementations of bigger steam units and to me they are still fun ..and the other factor as well, price. Someone might not be able to afford a 2000 buck legacy Big Boy, but could afford let's say a 600 buck LC 2.0 version of it. But if the LC 2.0 big boy is now let's say 1200 bucks, people simply can't afford it, any more than they can afford a legacy big boy a 2k. It is kind of like in the car world, where someone is looking to buy a new Toyota and is looking at a Corolla. Someone says "why a corolla, the Supra is a hot car". A corolla is a 20k car, a Supra is mid 40's to start. Someone else might come along and say "Well, the Camry is a nice car, too, why not buy that at 30k?" . Problem is that 20k is what they can afford. If they can get a lc 2.0 version of a big engine at a Corolla price, they will buy it, if it costs at the Camry level it might as well be the Supra in terms of affordability.
It is why I think semi scale is not going anywhere, because it can be an acceptable tradeoff to running models of a prototype that if it was full scale they couldn't. It is the nature of the hobby to have tradeoffs; scale equipment looks great, is prototypical, but can limit what you can run in modest space. Things like LC 2.0 run on modest layouts, but they aren't totally protypical and they also tend to run to less than 1/48 size, so might look weird if mixed with scale oriented equipment.
I question whether non scale sized stuff is going to fade away for that reason, I think there are a lot more people with available layout space that is modest versus those who can build the layout with 096 curves and the like. Menards does pretty well with its offerings also because they are unique, filling gaps in either the post war or current semi scale world.
