Originally Posted by RMabo 
I have been a Pentax SLR users since 1988, and since then - Pentax has been declared as "dying" at least every year. In the early 90's, Pentax was said to prepare for killing the SLR line and going strictly with the highly successful Espio range. The success of the MZ-serie changed that, if the MZ-serie had been a flop - Pentax SLR would be no longer. Pentax has had many years with uncertain future, they have "lived on borrowed time" for the last 10 years, and they still haven't died. It is just like Apple who was declared as knocked out in the middle of the 90's, but raised at the count of 10 and now is a highly successful company. As a Pentax user, I have learned to live with "Pentax will die!".
To my observation the early 90's were pentax's darkest years. They moved away from
the widely respected Super Program and allowed the LX to become obsolete while stumbling
at the adoption of auto focus. Worse they produced a series of bodies that were ugly plastic. they finally got it right with the MZ/Zx series and got an attractive body with autofocus and life has been good since then