In rebuttal of that theory/analogy, I propose that dead plants possibly cause a lot of people to give up instead of buy more. Relying on or even hoping for the repeat business of the addicted yet uninformed enough to succeed doesn't sound like a viable plan to me.
I do think it's an active conversation at the growers though, and possibly also at the corporate level of the/some BBS's, from comments about painted plants, irradiated philodendrons, Sansevieria plants with fuzzy paint, glow in the dark plants, blue orchids, and vague tagging, that I've seen "out there" or directly received in response to questions from a large, well known operation. I think that would fall under the category of hoping to attract new plant lovers by getting their attention via novelty plants, new versions of old plants, or ordinary plants with something done to them (like some kind of paint.) Surely the idea goes past potted house plants.
I've tried explaining that the true addicts already know the plants, and are mostly trying to find something they know about but don't already have, or something so unusual they've not encountered it before at all (not just a diff color flower or dwarf version of an well known plant,) but I'm not sure how much impact that had.
Basic marketing = identify your customer.
