Here's my perspective as a distributor:
1. I have responsibility to myself and shareholders to stay in business.
2. I meet that responsibility by keeping and gaining market share by having products that will appeal to the market I choose to serve.
3. Over the years, the product lines that have been identified with as "Pembertons stuff" have changed. Our reasons for changing focus or support of a line can be issues of competitive pricing in the market place, market support from the vendor, but mostly how that product is perceived and received among our customer base and our prospective and potential customers.
We made a major change from a vendor who's name was nearly synonymous with our own, and with whom we worked for nearly 40 years. That product is still here, but its not a leading line any longer, for the above three reasons. Another such line is likely going to change its position here soon for similar reasons.
No matter what, the marketplace drives the distributor product selection, not the other way around.