That's not true at all. Jordan Brand does a billion a year, and sells more basketball shoes than Nike, Adidas, Reebok. Yet retros account for the majority of it. The BRed XI release alone was a $90MM release (which still didn't meet demand). That fusion article hits the nail on the head. There's a $1B eBay market for shoes that are 96% Nike. And the reason there's a secondary market that big is because Nike has no interest meeting demand. Once you are supplying enough to meet demand, growth becomes harder, marketing has to be done, etc. They don't want to make enough shoes and this isn't going to change. The bots are just a byproduct of their strategy, one they have to occasionally look tough against, while never taking remotely thorough measures to combat. Bot usage means demand is still high (maybe even growing) and it guarantees sellouts and none of their inventory in their own stores and warehouses, nor the stores of their closest business partners.
I think it's just hard for a lot of NT to come to grips with reality. Nike is too big to care, and we're all just cogs that keep their machine rolling. For every one dude who bails on Nike, there's 99 more to take their place in line (probably more like 99,000 but you get my point).