Originally Posted by noblepa 
Has Pentax EVER really competed head-to-head with Nikon and Canon, for the top-end market? When I bought my Spotmatic new in 1967, it seemed to me then, that Pentax made cameras and lenses that could produce images every bit as good as C & N, but they were still not competing.
This is true. Pentax HAS always been competitive with Nikon and Canon, but it was in their cameras' image making abilities, not necessarily their cameras' feature set.