I know that the Star Wars TCG sold very well in Logan, but I haven't talked to any of the local stores about it.
It's true that WEG gave up the Star Wars license, but they gave it up during a time when interest was very low--the first trilogy was old and the new trilogy was, if I remember correctly, still in development. They didn't have a current movie and an active media campaign to help drum up interest, so it's not really fair to say that a lack of interest then equates to a lack of interest overall.
My point about outsourcing is that Wizards could give the license away for a ridiculous deal--using your numbers above, let's say that the small company gest 4.50 and WotC gets 50 cents. Even in that situation, they're still making more money than they would by sitting on the license, and since they don't have to do any work whatsoever to get that money, it's still worth their time.
I think the route to go with the Star Wars RPG might be to follow Lucas's example and aim it at very young kids--that's what WotC did with their TCG, after all. Our generation just can't get as excited about Star Wars as we used to, so trying to sell to us is a losing proposition.
