Its a combination of a few reasons really
The main one being that this model has some TINY, THIN details, with compound paths. If you look at the closeup shots of the front latch, there is actually a hole cut out of the middle. For one, there is a high chance that when brushing silicon onto the model, this piece breaking with ease. Also each half of the box would require a 2 part mold to capture the details on both sides. I'm also currently out of the silicon and casting resins I use when I work, and financially it doesn't make sense to buy a gallon of product to cast these. Also the silicon I'm comfortable with using has a 6 hour cure time, multiplied by 4 mold halves, not worth it IMO.
Its all those small things that add up into one big reason just to go with raw prints. I'm sure I could farm my model out to someone who casts more often than I do, but than I have added costs there, and it turns into a bigger ordeal than anything IMO.
So long story short, I firmly believe original prints will in fact be cheaper, and you are guaranteed every copy will have all the details. Once you see this in hand, you will be impressed with how crisp the detail is in the bottom tray where the slides tab into.
Hope that makes sense.
