How did the companies do this?

What I mean by that is that there used to be a huge drought of modern military figures. And then it took "The War on Terror" to produce all these new (resin) modern military figures and weapons sets from Russian to U.S. to European and even Italian, Canadian, Australian, and Chinese nations. But before, there was Concord SOJs and 1/6 dolls as pretty accurate reference and yet still, no one made modern figures. Now we have guns and figures from a lot of companies with no end in sight. Some sculptors are saying they're so good that all they need are some internet photos and they could make it.

Is it from soldiers' reference help, or a wealth of internet photos that is driving the production of modern figures?

Wow, what a change from when there were hardly any new modern military figures for a while.

You may be partly right, there is a number of factors if you ask me, I will use myself as a example, see I am 25 and a big console player, mainly a fantastic game called Battlefield 3, this is what got me into modelling as i loved the vehicles in the game, infact i picked up a T90 yesterday as its in the game. Video games have helped show us younger people the very interesting world of armored vehicles. Also, i think not just games but other media, like films, may of had a impact. And plus how many times can a company release a Sherman tank? They had to look at new directions, i know your talking about figures but you get what i mean, i hope!