See, Sprawl Gangers, from everything we have seen posted, is a Miniatures Wargame. It is not a MIniatures Board Game like Battletech and Leviathans(at least..I really hope it is like what I define as a wargame). That means it is part of The Hobby. The Hobby is the full range of miniatures work, from assembling, pinning, and modifiying all the way up to paints and playing. I would expect that you would want to make sure all your gangers are easily identifiable, so you don't want them pre-painted and pre-assembled if you buy, say, 3 Male Human Eye Fivers with Predator V Pistol, and they all look the same. And, then, say you have something happen that let's you give one of those Eye Fivers, say, an Ingram Smartgun or an HVAR, and you need to change the ganger. Do you really want to have to go buy a new model? or just be able to strip the hand, do a quick hack and swap conversion, and have it WYSIWYG, like I would expect in any Miniature Wargame.
One thing I must say about the idea that it is more costly to make the molds for non-metal as it is metal. There are a number of companies that are making use of spin-casting with special, hybrid formulas of resin and plastic. These produce much more detailed castings, and cost comparable to metal, but, except for GW's formula, are much more stable in price. The most expensive minis I know of, of course, are the Forge World Titans for Warhammer 40K Apocalypse Scale games, which are solid resin(not plastic-resin), and that you have to buy them in parts.
