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What do you consider economically feasible and how do you figure it out?  I don't think most vendors do try to figure it out. They may make something for a figure (just for arguments sake say Miki 4) and they make the same outfit for another figure (Roxie). The outfit for Miki 4 sells as expected, but the one for Roxie doesn't. So the vendor assumes that  things for Roxie don't sell well. The problem with that argument is that it's almost a self fullfilling argument. People don't expect to see anything for Roxie so they're not looking. And if they're not looking they won't buy. You have to give the figure time to prove itself. Something most vendors don't really want to do.

However, that would be a decent enough gauge of interest. If a vendor is making things for a living, you can usually tell by the first or second product what the market is for a figure, since the customer is determining what they're willing to purchase. Most vendors, especially those that do content for a living, can't afford to try 3 or four times with a particular figure to see if it's popular increases if their sales are bad. But then they are also asking other vendors if they are having decent sales with a figure.

A more recent example would be Dawn; there was a lot of hype surrounding the release, but quite a few vendors lost money in that initial rush, which is why you barely see items for her now. Now it could also be the fact that the release wasn't handled properly since dumping a bunch of product out at the same time without properly spacing them out means someone one wins and some people lose in the rush for customers purchasing product; but to have support die off and have Gen 4 items dominate again pretty much means a lot more people lost than won; probably the winners in this case were the ones that made the utilities to convert v4's skin and clothing. But the customers in general dictated the demand so there must have not been many interested in the figure for one reason or another, so the vendors haven't produced much for her. Looking at the placement of the community bundle in the hot list when it released here was pretty telling as well; I went through 20+ pages and all the new releases placed way higher and I couldn't actually see where the product placed. I stopped looking when I saw clearance items placing higher than the bundle.