Disclaimer: Please read the whole post before commenting.
I think the members of this board for the most part will always want to get the best quality item from the best makers no matter what the circumstance.
A lot of where recasting comes in is due to people who do not know any better. The first time fett costumer often buys a recast off of ebay not knowing that the real maker/artist was here on the boards offering the same item but at better quality. Most people that shop on ebay are looking for the best deal and tend not to read the fine print or not even understand what the fine print means.
Unfortunately there will always be people looking to make a quick buck and they will recast something poorly and do a run on ebay. People will always buy them. But I think in the end it doesn’t hurt the artists here at TDH as much as we think.
Keep in mind please this is only an opinion and I have no experience with selling items.
But if you look at every time FP, as well as others, posts a run of a new or old item there is a huge response of people wanting to buy that item. Weather it be armor or buckets or gauntlets people always line up around the block be cause its from the man FP. Members and savvy costumers are always willing to pay top dollar for what they perceive to be the very best in this hobby. This is true with many of the artists here at TDH.
As far as mystery buckets go I originally purchased a sgtfang bucket because I thought that was the best place to get one. I thought that was THE mystery helmet. I purchased a MS3 kit from MarrowSun because I really liked all the modifications that he did to the bucket and kit even though it is very similar to the sgtfang bucket in most respects. Both of those to me seem to be coming from the original artists and therefore did not seem wrong at all. Both sgtfang and marrowsun spent a considerable amount of time and effort crafting their bucket kits into what they are now. That to me makes them artists regardless of where the origins of the bucket lay.
I also purchased a ILM Jango from FP, granted it was considered slightly less quality as a second but I did not care as it was an amazing opportunity to get the most accurate jango bucket possible for a very decent discount. I consider FP an artist as well not only for his crafting skills in creating his armor, modifying the MSH into the MSH2 but also for doing a considerable amount of work to cast the Jango buckets up in cold cast. Even on my slightly defective casting the care in the casting was evident.
Another thing to consider about all these makers is that they have either the original molds of heavily modified versions of the original molds in their possession that they either did a lot of work to create or spent a lot of money to purchase. I think there is something to be said for that. Who owns the original Intellectual property aside and think much of the ownership and right to make runs goes with the molds themselves. If you sell your molds or purchase molds I would think its a safe assumption that you are also selling or assuming the right to make casts from the molds. That seems like a logical conclusion that most people would come to.
I personally would never buy a recast if there was the original item available from the original artist. But items like the MR bucket will be limited, (plus I would never repaint an original one unless of course there were enough of them to purcahse 2) And since it has the "truest shape" I would not mind buying a decent recast to paint up.
It truly all goes back to supply and demand. As well as the fact that people(for the most part) are cheap and dont want to spend alot of money normally. The true believers savvy costumers and most of the members on this board, I think, will continue to support the resident artists as best we can as long as they keep producing some of the best items availible. 
Sorry if I dragged this out too long and just went in a big circle but I felt this was the place to share my thoughts on the matter.
Please keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion and not ment to offend anyone. Please feel free to PM me with all your angry comments, disagreements, praise fanfare ect.... 
cheers,
-Rob
