Here's a bit of trivia: Red Data was listed in the Christmas 1994 JC Penney catalog as "Commander Data in Dress Uniform." The picture showed him properly, but he wasn't listed properly. So you had to somehow figure out that he was in fact a rare exclusive, despite the name, and order the four figures for $22.99.
Somehow, collectors did get notice of this figure and ordered it, which is why you rarely see them out of the package. But without the internet, or easy communication, it was super difficult to even get advanced notice for something like this unless you were scanning Christmas catalogs in the hope of seeing some exclusive. What it required was calling Pmates directly to find out just where he was -- in a JC Penney catalog -- but calling JC Penney directly did not always result in finding out this info. Some people called JC Penney at the time to confirm they had him, and the company would know nothing about it. (But you also had to know to call JC Penney in the first place, for which you needed the catalog or to call Pmates first).
But here another issue: Just how many regular customers bought these four figures versus collectors? This was a strange way of buying figures in the first place, I would surmise, and if customers didn't buy enough of them, what would have happened with the rest? I think at some point the catalog would have run out of them, or put them on the pegs.
Incidentally, about a year ago I bought Red Data with two other figures from this group of four (minus Wesley) for pretty close to the original catalog price. Prior to that, I only had two Canadian-market Red Datas. So in 2019 I bought Red Data with two other figures in the most ridiculous way possible.
The JC Penney catalog also offered four "Generations" figures at the time, but I don't know just which ones they were.