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Slighty off topic:

H.B.M.C. wrote:do you deride your toaster because it can't vacuum your house?

Yes I do, and on a daily basis. Lazy good-for-nothing piece of junk only sits there and singes my bread products, how dare it not wash my car?!

Back on topic:

There are definitely different kinds of people in the minis hobby. Among them are the wargamers who mostly buy the models they are specifically using in a game and collectors who buy rare pieces or beautiful sculpts that they will enjoy painting and showing off that often are not used in a gaming system. Of course there are varying degrees of people lying in between, but just looking at those two ends for now. When a mini shows up in the News forum it's definitely bombarded with people looking at them from a gamer perspective. While there are plenty of remarks such as "Wow, beautiful mini!", the comments and interest often do not generate sales because the wargamer doesn't have much use for them.

While many miniatures often do point back to GW or are left unpurchased because 40k/Fantasy players have no intention of having a pretty knick-knack in the house, other minis companies appear to be doing pretty well and are specifically catered to being non-GW compatible. Soda Pop Miniatures comes to mind most immediately with their over-the-top anime-styled minis that are nearly all fantastic sculpts and appear to do pretty well on the collector side of things. Heck, their Super Dungeon Explorer minis sold out at Games Day and I can't see anyone using those in a GW system ever.

I do wonder if the OP is basing his litmus test of non-GW interest on the forums here or in similar forum sites like Warseer and such. I would think that other forums with a more collector-based community such as CMON would show much more interest in non-GW sculpts and not base their opinions on whether or not it fits into a particular gaming system.

Another off-topic note:

Can it be made an official forum ruling that all modquisition friendly reminders come coupled with pictures? I do so enjoy them over the standard text-based friendly and less-friendly reminders.