Well in that case I've had no chance of being a Space Marine for quite some time.
Seriously speaking, sure a company can charge whatever they like for their product. But this has its impact! I'll repeat here what I said over on BoLS: basically, increasing the price of a product will reduce sales. Not might: WILL. It reduces the number of potential customers who can afford the product, and out of those who CAN afford it reduces the number who can justify or are willing to shell out for that product. This is just as true with toy soldiers as it is with milk or motor vehicles or anything else you care to name - and it effects luxuries, such as toy soldiers, far more than it'd effect, say, bread.
Strange as it may seem, cutting price is a good way to increase sales and as a very direct result drive up profitability. Where do you think the likes of 'Black Friday Bargains' come from? It sure as hell isn't out of the goodness of anyone's heart, and those 'bargains' sure as hell aren't being sold at a loss!
There are things that can be done to counteract the effect on sales of high price, mostly around marketeering tricks and the right advertising. But GW do not, have to my awareness NEVER, do those things. You can get away with it by top-noth market research, knowing exactly what your customers want and exactly what they are willing to pay for it - but again, GW do not do so: Tom Kirby has openly bragged about their total lack of market research, an attitude which after seventeen years in the retail industry had me reacting like he'd turned round and grown an extra head. Finally, you can get away with it by having a vastly higher-quality product than the competition - which a few hours study of what GW's myriad competitors are doing will adequately demonstrate that they flat-out do not have. Their miniatures are good, world-class even - but they are far from 'the best ever', they certainly are not unmatched either in quality or in value for money, and their rules are crud.
The only thing GW have is their IP - and 40k is not Star Wars: it is flat-out just not a big enough name to indefinitely support a product at GW's price mark. This is why we're seeing things like using IP (Admech, Harlies, rumours of Stealers) they'd left essentially untouched since the 1990s, this is why the total revamp of Fantasy (badly implemented as it appears to have been) in an attempt to more directly compete with the likes of Heroclix, this is why the relaunch of Specialist Games; none of those are the action of a company resting on its laurels. All of those are the actions of a company in a mad scramble to halt a decline - I just don't think they're doing enough. Pulling out of a dive can be a stone-cold bitch no matter how gradual it is - I could very well elaborate, I work for a company that came to the point one bad week at the wrong time would have put us under during the worst of the credit crunch; we're in substantially better shape now but we had a devil of a time doing it.
I think it should be clear I think GW's prices (with a side order of pisspoor rules) are the biggest cause for the decline we've seen (those of us who've been keeping an eye on their bottom line and market share) over the last few years from their roughly-2002 peak. Sooner or later they're going to have to wake up to the fact that they are in the gaming industry, that good games are necessary to their survival, and that their products are at a noncompetitive price point. It's just a matter of how bad a financial situation they're going to find themselves in first.
We shall assuredly see.