Actually I'm encouraged by this. I've hoped they'd go back to some of the late Fantasy ideas on intelligent assembling of reissue material as opposed to just the straight reissues. This is a much more cost-effective and cohesive presentation of the material than the splintered "originals".
Yeah, but I think it depends. I would love to see more box sets like the late Fantasys, but not like this. It overblows the Miles/Sonny "partnership" into something that it's not and rehashes well-worn material that is best served by the "originals". What I would like to see is something like a complete Dolphy Five Spot set, a Jaki Byard or Booker Ervin or Teddy Charles or Shelly Manne set. This suggests to me that they're only interested in rehashing the "hits" as opposed to digging deeper into the catalogue to collate worthy material intelligently.
But maybe you're right, maybe it's a good sign. Anything is better than more Essentials.