Probably because the high end instruments weren't selling well enough so Gibson took all of the bass companies they bought...Tobias, Kramer and Steinberger...and after a few years slowly turned them into cheap import-only lines that traded on the brand-name cred.
Anyone remember Musicyo? It was a direct mail order outfit that if not owned by Gibson was certainly tightly intertwined with them. They were a precursor to outfits like Rondo. Sold a lot of instruments I suppose, but drove the cred of those brands into the ground.
Wel, that was their decision to make and if we disagree with it, OK.
I wouldn't say Gibson sucks at making basses, what they suck at is marketing basses. If they can get people to pay $6000+ for a Les Paul they should have been able to sell some high end basses. I recall seeing fewer ads for those brands after Gibson bought them, not more. I saw fewer of those basses in stores, perhaps due to Gibson's preference for requiring franchises to order minimum amounts of each instrument...want to sell Les Pauls, you have to buy some banjos too. There were no such requirements for Epiphones, whcih is why you used to go into a store and see Epis but not Gibsons on the floor.
