Well, two points:
BTW, I'm not getting your point (here and above) re: S&W revolvers.
I'm not seeing the tie-in to the topic. Perhaps you could clarify?
For one part of your question, I wouldn't use MA compliance as a guide to what's popular. Like California, it's stupid expensive to get them to check out a gun, and any changes made to the gun (like a different P226 variant) requires retesting (and more cash).
As far as the revolver crack goes, a reason the 3rd Gens were cancelled is because the market wants plastic guns that are lighter, hold more bullets, and far cheaper to make. Revolvers have lost the majority of their popularity. They're also gigantic, heavier than any 1911, and only hold between 5-8 rounds. They also cost Sig money to buy. In other words, they're the exact opposite of what the "market" says it wants.
Using that logic, if S&W wants to make revolvers, they should be making polymer frames because they're cheaper and lighter.
Whereas the market has shown that people will pay more for a premium firearm that's well made and crafted. The CZ Shadow is the overwhelming ruler of competition guns, even over Glock.
It seems counter intuitive, but Bill Wilson is a huge fan of Beretta 92s. He's a big enough industry figure that if he asks if you want to work together and a business venture, you shut up and count how much money you've made. When he talked to Beretta, the Italians declared the 92 dead and the PX4 was the future. No one wanted an improved 92 otherwise the 90-two would have been a massive success.
After using his crowbar of justice, he pryed Beretta's ironclad cheeks far enough open to make a limited run of 1,000 Brigadier Tacticals. In the first week of preorders, they sold out their initial run of 250 pistols and most of their 2nd shipment of 250. It's been such a massive success that it's no longer a limited run. It's been so big they made the Custom Carry as another non-limited run.
They also did a run of the 92G-SDs for the folks stuck in "People's Republics..." and they're hard to find. Even the M9A3 in dog poo brown has sold through it's initial run until they get their new TN plant up and gets through the next order of M9s for the military.
And Sig is drowning in cash to such a degree they've started making their own optics and ammo.
All of this for a type of gun that the market has indicated that it "doesn't want" according the what it does want listed earlier. But it will sell you a .460 XVR with a 10.5" barrel, a 5 round capacity, weighs more than 3 Glocks, and costs around $1,300 street price. But supposedly, according to S&W, more people want that revolver more than a high quality 9mm/.45 that's not a 1911, is of high quality, reliable, can outshoot the average plastic pistol, and is something the average person would use for self defense.
If you're a law enforcement agency and you write a big enough check, you can have them built.
Doing a minor drift, I would not go back to the same strategy that S&W used before they canceled them. I wouldn't bother with a Value Line at all. I wouldn't build a DAO variant. I wouldn't spend the money for an alloy frame model since they didn't sell well and cost the same as the steel models. I wouldn't build any .40 models because they don't sell well and S&W did something with their magazine design to limit them to a max of 11 rounds. Just leave them 9mm and .45, full size TSW with the integrated rail, and the 3913/4513 CCW line that no one had done as good ever since.
It's brilliant marketing and it seems to have worked. That's what you call turning lemons into lemonade. 
I recently had a chance to try a bullseye competition grade single action pistol with the lightest trigger ever (lighter than any Model 41 or 52-2 I've ever picked up). It was fabulous for me at the range, but I'm not asking for that on a carry or personal defense gun. On the other hand, too many of the striker-fired plastic wonders I've tried are simply atrocious trigger-wise, especially here behind enemy lines. 
