>>2836416>>2836287Demographics is an important thing to consider in these cases, this is why I focus on it in some of my earlier posts. It helps explain the results. There's various ways that popularity manifests itself, such as figures:
http://myfigurecollection.net/search.php?character_strict=1&character_id=1959http://myfigurecollection.net/search.php?character_strict=1&character_id=1993and supply is in most cases is dictated by demand. Here is the same situation for e.g Rei and Asuka:
http://myfigurecollection.net/search.php?character_strict=1&character_id=1711http://myfigurecollection.net/search.php?character_strict=1&character_id=1553The point I'm going to make is that there is also a fatal flaw in the comparison arguments you've made: Rei vs Asuka is not Ami vs Usagi.
While Rei always beats Asuka in the original by a very large margin, there are cases as demonstrated above where Usagi trumps Ami by a considerable margin as well. It's very unstable and depends more on who you ask, but for Rei vs Asuka the answer seems to be the same always.
Even in the figure comparison, the truth is that Asuka has been playing catchup all the time, and because the direction of Evangelion is heavily biased towards Asuka and directly against Rei, there has been a popularity change as a reaction to Anno abandoning and attacking Rei whilst glorifying Asuka. Sortting by date reveals that up until recently, Rei has been around 2-3 years ahead of Asuka in terms of figure releases.
If anything the facts simply undermine your theory, and it's not surprising since it is indeed an otaku myth mostly being perpetrated by disillusioned Asuka fans and Rei-haters alike.
Keep in mind that Rei is still popular despite the negative attention the character has been getting, only testifying further to the huge gap between them.
