OH they are so bent mate, you find me a 50 pence note in the UK and I'll show you how to tell it's bent (not least because it's a note).
I managed to catch most of my bangle characters before the failcost apocalypse, and when I went all ork during the last codex I managed to catch most of the current and previous run of characters in metal on ebay. I think the most I paid was a fiver over retail, but that was for the nob banner lad still in blister. In many cases I paid less than retail for painted or undercoated figures, that, after a couple of days in dettol, were shiny new again.
Don't mind characters in plastic, just never warmed to resin, probably just my advanced age.
I don't tend to pay extra to avoid finecast.
I'll actively hunt out older metal sculpts at swap meets, bring-and-buy, or gamers 2nd hand stalls, though.
Grabbed a 6th ed tiranoc chariot for my HE, and two bolt throwers with crew that way (for less than what a single model of each costs in plastic).
I stopped buying 40k stuff a couple of years ago, though.
since some people mentioned it, im not sure theres any pure lead 40k models, i just know that they went from being about 5% to 3% in 1993 or 95 there used to be a pdf of an internal gw document that was around for a bit addressing it. essentially when GW stores opened they constantly got questions from parents about the pewter and the "you hold it by its base" argument did not hold up. when im back from tour ill find it somewhere in my desktop pdf collection
I have the White Dwarf from when they eliminated lead. They decided to do it for safety reasons.
If styrene plastic is available, I'll gladly go with that. Crisp & precise, non-brittle. Easy to assemble. Multi-pose.
Failing that, monopose metal. Not a fan of pinning anymore. Minor chipping is an annoyance, but that's why we have storage cases.
Chipping paintwork is mostly due to type of paint used (chemical balance and ingredants and such) and temperture the models are constaly kept at, as metal contract and shrinks in very hot and very cold tempertures.