Originally posted by Jodokast96 Ask Canon users that bought the 70-300L.
Indeed. People do pay a lot of money for premium super zooms
I think the point is that super zooms are normally optically questionable because on the whole they are cheap. It's not simply the fact that they are hard to design.
But super zooms can be very good - look at the Bigma - but in order to be good they are expensive.
I'm not sure Pentax could market a 25-350 for £900 unless they gave it a DA* designation - people wouldn't pay that unless they were assured of the quality. It's also the case that variable apertures do not mean a lens is optically less capable than a fixed aperture lens.
If however this is indeed a consumer lens then it does need to be a DA* - point is people assume super zooms are poor and so need a little marketing help. Canon would have a harder time selling the 70-300L without the L designation even if it was optically identical.