For me the question in 2011 is this: Why should anyone expect that the factory is going to be your investor?
Someone has to pay to develop an idea, market it, and sell it. You have to convince someone to put up the money if you cannot or are unwilling to risk it. The factory is in my mind the last option.
The part of the brain that thinks that the lone designer can take a product to the mass market and makes millions is next to the lottery ticket purchase cortex. The time for asking the factory to front the lottery ticket money has passed.
If you want to break into business, think of it as a business. Get money, get good people, get connected to retailers. Make models, test the product, modify the product, take it to a manufacturer and make it. Do it as guerrilla as you can manage, but put the elements in place like a business.