[carstenw]

Everybody is building good quality products for the mass market. Almost every SLR in the world is very good, digital or film. Leica wants to go beyond that, and that requires more attention. Many of Leica's manufacturing methods are proprietary and I doubt severely that they will ever use them outside of Germany and Portugal.

There is a relatively large number of "affordable" Leica lenses in the M range now, well within the range you state. 28 Elmarit Asph, 35 Summarit and Cron, 50 Summarit and Cron, 75 Summarit, 90 Summarit and Elmarit all fit in your price range, and there are some great deals on the second-hand market. I imagine that the strategy Leica has followed in the M segment will be followed by a similar strategy in the R line, ie. new, cheaper lenses, and well as some rationalisation.

If Leica makes a 1Ds3 competitor, resolution-wise, it is only fair if it costs around $8000. If they make a 1D3/D3 competitor, then around $5000 is fair, and that is my personal guess. Probably a little more resolution but less speed, but around the $5000 mark. The M8 was about 30% more than a film M, and I think Leica will try to do the same with the R10, except maybe a bit more due to the larger amount of technology in it.

I don't think that Leica is bad at electronics any more. They need to pay more attention to testing though, because digital requires different, more stringent testing methodologies than film.

I am not sure why you think that most people don't buy Leica due to price. The price of the Leicas is fair compared to their competition. I suspect most people don't buy Leicas because they don't know enough about them.