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...Why gaming sheets like these haven't been the norm for last 30 years is IMHO a testament to archaic general level of the miniature industry, lagging by decades...
Maybe it's because a lot of us like to see the texture of terrain as opposed to flat printed relief. For instance; the European mat shown in the picture above has woods and hedgerows printed, but then also has physical hedgerows placed on it. To me, and probably a lot of others, this is jarring and therefore actually shaped and textured terrain is highly preferable. ... After all; we paint our miniatures to our best ability, to look as good as possible, imitating real (or imagined) life, and then placing those on a printed mat, no matter how nice it looks, simply detracts from the desired effect of realism.
Now, this does not go for all types of gaming surface: I've playing space combat games on mousemat material game mats for many years, and they're perfect for that type of game.
But whenever there is terrain that interacts with line of sight, I don't think it's desirable to have that printed on your mat, and personally, I'd even state that any terrain feature that has a relief of more than, say, 2cm in real life, should not be printed, but represented by 3D terrain instead.
Now, I understand factors such as time and space limitations; not everyone has the resources, storage room and/or the available time to build a table. ... But I do believe that the majority of wargamers, when given the choice, prefer textured over flat printed terrain for all the reasons I stated above.
And for what it's worth, I do not think the miniature industry is any way near as archaic as you suggest, with the use of digital sculpting, huge advances in the use of materials, moulds and multipart plastics and -resins, 3D-printing, MDF-terrain and many, many more.
My guess would be 'production costs' is the answer to a lot of the questions that you posed.Remember that compared to the big boys producing the games that you mention, most gaming companies are tiny in comparison and cannot afford to invest so heavily in something that may or may not prove popular.GW is one of the biggest companies in the industry, and has been for some time, but at the time of Heroquest being released would have been a tiny little fish compared to MB games...
If textured terrain is wanted instead of flat sheets, it changes nothing of the core question: why haven't Zuzzy-like 3D mat sheets been provided with each boxed copy of Warhammer, Fantasy Warriors, Kill Zone and such for the last 30 years? Plastic, rubber and fabric are all cheapo, lightweight and one-component solutions compared to hardwood, actual metal nails/screws and litres of glue, paint, flock sand and whatnot.
Hardcore hobbyists will always go their own way, not being content with the materials already provided by the market. I'm arguing here for the rest 98 % of the hobbyists
Also, a lot of people still like to 'make stuff'.
...until the moment an another hobbyist walks into gaming club room and notes that flat sheet like that doesn't reflect the optics of deep space at all with the comets, stars and deathstars all missing; flat waves do no carry ships forwards in naval games nor do flattened battlescapes of air warfare allow the airplanes to descend through the clouds to play a hide-and-seek amongst mountain valleys. See how the same arguments could be used to dispel space or airbattle mats as being way too flat-eart..., ahem, a flat-spacer when it comes to such games?
(Why gaming sheets like these haven't been the norm for last 30 years is IMHO a testament to archaic general level of the miniature industry, lagging by decades other industries.)
I bought my first PC at 16 in 1998 and it had a 4gb hard drive, still took floppy disks and dial up was still the most common connection.
This hobby is all encompassing, there are folks who call what they do 'traditional' wargaming. Some play with traditionally toy scales of soldiers etc. It doesn't make it archaic. It makes it diverse.
I wish you could have grids printed on them (hexes or squares)!