@ Bat13, I see your point, but if there was PLENTY of loose ones in excellent condition out there, like the Star Wars figure in this thread, would you go buy a carded example and open it or would you buy a loose one in excellent condition (or a carded one on a beat to pleeple card) and save the better carded ones for people who wanted nice carded examples? (just curious what you'd do, not trying to say you'd be wrong either way)

If there was plenty of loose ones out there then yes i would probably try to grab one of them first. Especially because they would probably be cheaper!

I was just pointed out that this figure is almost impossible to find and if i actually found one that happened to be MOC and it happened to be the very last MOC piece I would open it in a heartbeat without remorse.

I was actually thinking of this topic the other night and sometimes I do purposely buy MOC figures off eBay instead of the loose ones because loose figures tend to have damaged and paint rubs from being stuck in a toy chest with other toys. A few of my Darkwing Duck figs were actually bought MOC because the loose ones were so worn. Again, these toys aren't super old or even that rare but i think that is a pretty good argument for wanting to buy something MOC just to open it.

I have to admit I would open the sucker as well, to complete my loose collection, hell I would open anything to complete my loose collections, to me they are toys and always will be.

They aren't works of great art or anything like that, burning the Davinci Code really doesn't belong in the same context as opening a figure no matter how much it cost, if you can afford it and want to open the toy (yes toy) then go for it.