Originally posted by audiobomber Thanks for the correction, but my main point is that Pentax said for a decade that they were NOT interested in developing a full-frame DSLR. Only since Ricoh acquired Pentax has the story changed.
Pre-Hoya, Pentax was all over the place with their ideas -- MZ-D, 645D -- all sorts of stuff floating around, but not particular focused plan and so nothing came in on time and pieces fit together. Under Hoya, it was all APS-C -- all of the messages came out were consistent with that and nothing was announced until it was actually ready for release (meaning that the lens map completely went away).
Ricoh has been signaling that they are taking a different path from Hoya, but it isn't totally clear to me yet, what that means. Hopefully a continued focused path, but including more high-end items that would have been too risky for Hoya corporation.