'Moon!
I hear ya!
Nothing wrong with cloning figures, especially if they are rare, as long as you intend to use the clones for your own use.
Have you been following my 1:33 pilot figure thread? Forget the lousy pictures: I am about to start ch. 2 with better pix. Follow on!!
Figure conversion is not difficult. In fact, it is easier than rigging a small-scale ship or a biplane model.
Figures are very important to me as a model builder. I much enjoy card, plastic and 1:1 scale modelling, and certainly at my advanced, declining age, would love to work in the larger 1:25 scale as I can see much better there!! However, I come from the old school of modeling that sort of demands a figure to set the scale, and that "a figureless model, no matter how well done, is a dead thing". (Readers, do not take offence. I believe that I actually heard that quote directly from Sheperd Paine in Chicago in 1984)
So I resize 1:25 to 1:35 (71.4%) and I bash on. Meanwhile, I, too, continually look for suitable figures. Preiser has some 1:87 railway workers that will do well as crewmen for my 1:100 Fly Model Surcouf.
I need some 1:72 figures for a custom ship model for my niece's retirement from the Navy.
But what's happened to my Dragon 1:35 Modern Soviet tank troops, and the Tamiya 1:25 troops etc?
Where do I find the 1:25 scale figures to animate the vast new Modelik SCUD?
I guess, my friend, we gotta help ourselves.
I am thinking very seriously about this.
Jim