It is not like they have to physically make the copies of the Albion II when someone new buys it. Obviously they are bringing new replacement, otherwise it could sit there forever and still being bought.
Many companies have to do these shenanigans due the high competition. It is hard to get new customers for your older stuff so the army of loyal customers are the goldmine. They need to have something to generate repeated sales and having Albion II point two and charge cross-grade is the perfect solution. And it doesn't hurt if it create buzz.
I still think spitfire are among the very few with true "golden ears". Their products are meticulously executed and they also have access to very best players, sound stages and audio engineers one can hope for. But the competition doesn't sleep either. OT or Cinesamples can spit another of their 100GB library that would be also perfectly executed, played and recorded.
I have my reservation about Albion as a library in general but one cannot argue that they are not (most of the time) amazingly produced for what they were supposed to be designed. If you like Albion One and find it useful, you will also like Albion II as well. Now for half price... not bad deal.
But also to be on the critique end, I feel they really did spend too much time on the "bonuses" in the albion libraries, the ones that deviate from orchestral too much. And as for Albion II I really appreciate they let some drunks play cheap plastic recorders for the artistic impact but maybe for the Albion TWO get actually real players or do an alcohol test.