Yeah, the P-Bandai product line seems to be growing faster than the standard lines these days. And as Greysnake said, they must have hit on a profitable angle, but it leaves those outside of Japan to pay sometimes unreasonable markups. Add the limited production nature of the P-Bandai kits, and it is quite frustrating to get them. That being said, I have obtained P-Bandai kits via several sources, including a US based online shop, a Japan third party seller, and friends with connections.
But I think the P-Bandai program is now out of control, as they have made some kits which don't really belong in the series. The original intent was to kit obscure variants that might have only limited appeal to completists and die hard fans. But now they do inexplicable things like the 1/144 MSZ-006 Zeta Plus C Type, which is a bog-standard MS from Gundam Sentinel. And then they issue the Gundam Unicorn version as a standard kit. 
OK yeah it is a recent show, but still.
And Bandai seems to be exploring ways to make their kits less costly (to them not us) by doing things like eliminating polycaps. To be fair, Gundam kits have been really cheap in the past compared to other genres, but their prices are moving up to parity. And I view their recent attempts to engineer greater flexibility in posing with mixed feelings, as some of the choices like separating left/right torsos are frankly just ugly. To top it all off, Bandai uses some kind of plastic that is not compatible with solvent based paint washes. So far, I have not come across an official explanation from Bandai as to why their plastic is like that, and why they continue to use it. And stickers. I hate their stickers. 
For me, the upside to all this is that I buy less Gundam. 