The economy is bad, many people are out of jobs, 
so lesser people are buying cels.  You know, food 
is more important than cel :)

Many cels that are available now in the market 
are the not so good ones.  The top quality ones 
are already gotten by the collectors, and they're 
not selling those.  The cels that most fans want 
are always expensive, so not many people can 
afford them either.

For the new anime fans, they mainly watch the 
newer series like One Piece, Love Hina, and 
Shaman King...etc.  These recent series are made 
by computers, no cels.  And they are probably not 
too interest in the cels from the older series.  

There're many neat anime merchandises available 
to buy now in the US.  Toys, trading cards, CD, 
DVD and books...etc.  To some fans, they will 
ask, why pay $100 for a cel when you can spend 
the same amount for many anime merchandises?

The anime convention season just started, with 
Anime Central, Sakura Con and Fanime Con finished 
in the past couple weeks.  Then there're are many 
cons in the next few months.  People are saving 
money for them.