I think very slow sales are more the culprit than the materials (but I do think there is some credence to the materials issue).
While many of us in here have a real admiration for a scent like VT, we are far, far from the average consumer for this kind of luxury good. I think the typical man who wanders up to a Creed counter in Nieman or Saks is fairly well horrified by a scent like Tabarome. It takes a certain level of knowledge and appreciation for most people to grasp a scent like that. Too, if that average consumer is with a woman, the chances are she will be more appalled than he.
Perhaps I'm filtering this through much of my own experience, but the women I know in their 30s consider VT to be akin to Old Spice- something their grandpa would wear. Not that they think it smells "bad" - just very far from current and contemporary. That can be a huge issue for some people under 40 or so.
Same thing happened to the legendary Patou Pour Homme which sold for a fraction of the cost of VT. I would bet they dropped it because of slow sales. If they brought back mass produced VT tomorrow at $60 per bottle, there would a rash of us leaping on it initially, but it would mostly linger on the shelves.
