I know what you mean about the lack of press comics. I think because of what you mentioned (the cost to produce vs. art prints) and the fact that a lot of content is read online nowadays, perhaps a lot of artists are not too eager to invest more $$ on putting out some physical comics for sale. Although there might be a million reasons on top of that. For example, I was at the Los Angeles Comic Con last year, both as a seller and as a tourist (it was my first time there), and I decided that if I were to sell there again this year, I would have at least one issue of my comic out for sell there. I was motivated by a friend of mine who did something similar with his comic at a different con. Anyway, after doing a bunch of research it came down to a compromise of cost vs. quality: big printers both overseas and in the US providing the better quality of paper/print and cost per unit require bulk orders of over 1 grand plus to make it worth their while; but then there are smaller printers that do more of a print-on-demand kind of thing, which is convenient for small batches, but you end up paying more per unit and the quality of paper/print isn't as good as offset printing. Maybe a lot of artists are put down by that choice and would rather wait until they have more content or a kickstarter going or something. Who knows really, but I do just love seeing indie comics at cons -- some are just so good.
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Everything you point out is spot on. And digital comics & webcomic platforms are absolutely fantastic for enabling even more diversity and a lower barrier to entry for artists. But I think they have “thinned the herd” in Artist Alley setups and I’m just slightly nostalgic for the past!