We've been discussing it in staff, Julian. I didn't even see this until Monda posted.

Monda, you break my heart with that quote.

Del, Jiro's dead on. The infantry droids were cheap to make. The Trade Federation wasn't looking to amass an unstoppable army in power but numbers. Where one falls ten more are made to replace it.

That said, the Trade Federation didn't actually build the droideka's themselves, but traded away for them. They were really expensive to make and I doubt they would have attempted.

Another bit of interesting information is that the Trade Federation was just a guild of traders, like their name implies. Dominating trade routes was a big deal back then so they had to build an army to defend themselves against any rising commerce groups (that's all speculation by myself. I haven't done a whole lot of reading on that as it's kind of boring, but nevertheless they had an army and they were in control of the routes). I'm not really sure what prompted it, but at the beginning of the Clone Wars Darth Sidious, who was, in a way, silently leading the Trade Federation, told Viceroy Nute Gunray to use his army on Naboo. I forget why atm. Basically they started some and screwed themselves out of doing business with people, so they weren't rakin' in the dough, which means they had to tighten their belts and continue making the ty, easily destroyed battle droids.

I'm a nerd.

Edit: Also, Del, if you're in a Star Wars mood, Wookieepedia is a beautiful place. It's like TVTropes, you can sit and read for hours.