There are no guarantees in life. It seems very rare that a set gets a complete release. For example Final fantasy VII, one of the most popular games in the world, only got a cheap keychain series as a complete release of all the main characters. All others (kotobukiya, play arts, extra knights etc) are incomplete. So now I do have a complete collection of nice looking figures but in 4 different scales.
It's just how it is.
But maybe this series gets a complete line, nobody knows for sure. It's a long term project for sure..as this thread started in 2012! We'll just have to wait and see.
If you release the a players first, then people might be inclined to continue expanding their collection because they already bought all the characters up to a certain point.
I don't think the release strategy matters much..you either want a complete collection or you don't.
If they released Akuma fifth in line it would just have meant a longer wait for me. This scale is way too big for me to consider collecting them all. Also I'm much more into Street fighter III these days than II.
But why say 'The only reason i jumped on this boat was to have all of them'? Even if Prototypez doesn't release all characters.. then what you end up with is still incredible on its own. Akuma is amazing, the best interpretation of him I've ever seen. And so is Ryu.