I do not think anyone expects to get back what they paid or more when selling up, it is more to do with the gap between selling and buying now thats the issue.
Speaking of Sterns for a long time now you could own a game and maybe loose 500-1000 tops, you could sell and put another 1000-1500 up and get the next NIB release.
Now where the prices are at today, you are looking at loosing several thousands and then having to put several thousands more in on top of that lose, to get the next release, it is just harder to maintain now.
Look at those Foo LEs, what where they new £15.5k? In this current market they are not selling at £11k thats already a £4.5k hit, then to get the next LE release (yes they could buy a pro or premium, let's just say for the hell of it they are an LE sucker) they would need to put the same again into it and thats if you manage to sell at £11-12k.