Market saturation, etc.
It's a great and underappreciated car for sure. But Mazda overproduced for the demand with the 2003.5 version and now has hundreds (a thousand?) around the country that they have had to discount way below what they were originally intending I'm sure. There are other factors contributing to the lack of demand such as competitiion from Evo, redesigned WRX (ugly bugeye look eliminated, but still more odd looking than the Mazda) and new STi, Cooper S. I'm sure that comparison tests in Car and Driver, etc. with the Mazda ranking behind the likes of the Neon RT and Focus SVT have cost a few sales (to those who would ever consider owning one of those brands). What was an up and coming market for "factory compact tuner" cars when the 2001 MP3 was introduced has been saturated since then. I hadn't even mentioned the Civic Si, Sentra Spec V, or VW GTI until now so that's a total 10 models in this segment with prices in the high teens to $30K without even considering those potential sales pulled from the more "sporty looking" coupes like the Celica, RSX, Eclipse, etc. I'll get off my soap box now.
Gary