There are no "luxury" DSLR brands. Just models aimed at the pro market. Prosumers buffer the bottom line but basically about half the top-end DSLR market is made up of tax and capital depreciation.
Some aspects of the the product lines (FA Ltd's) edge up into luxury brand pricing, but not really escaping the boundaries of hobby pricing. People spend $80k on boats for their fishing "hobby" so a $1,200 birder long glass is a pittance. Really only Leica has ever pushed into the bling luxury realm. As with the failed attempt at smartphones going luxury (remember Nokia saying that's the only place the market could grow?) any attempt to turn your snapshot camera into anything more than a sophisticated macro shooter is going nowhere.
Photography is lifestyle discretionary spending. Pentax has always been a mainstream SLR brand, like all of them. That's what K-Mount is.
In order to keep higher-end products going at all, you need to pump out reasonably priced lower end to keep gross revenues up and pay the wages of the assembly one. Volume counts in photography. It makes this industry work at all. Don't forget that, despite huge success, Olympus exited the SLR market in the 1980's because it was so low margin. They became an almost exclusively P&S manufacturer. Konica, Yashica, Contax, Bronica, Minolta, are all gone.
If I buy a Porsche911 it will always be a Porsche 911. A luxury car that will beat out a Mazda 5.
But in the world o photography, my equivalent to a Mazda (K-x) can easily beat out a Porsche (Leica M8). Photography has always seen a higher-end compete against the vernacular. And most of the time, more in digital via Flickr etc. than ever before, the vernacular has won the day.
Today's anecdote:
Went to the beach with the kids. Took my new K-30 and 18-135. Got some family snaps. Went to the wash station after with a 2 year-old, my K-30, and a bunch of surfers. Took out the K-30 and lens, and ran them under the shower to clear off any salt spray and errant sand.
Within seconds I had 2 guys asking me about the camera. Their jaws literally dropped when they saw me holding it under the shower. I told them it was a brand new $880 Pentax K-30 with 18-135 lens, both weather sealed. One guy said: "I gotta get me one of those". I told them about this forum and the Pentax Canada ad. I also mentioned that only Pentax has WR at this price range. That REALLY impressed them. One of the guys has a Nikon D70 his parents got his for high school grad and was looking at the D600 but he's a grad student and money....suddenly my Pentax looked like an affordable option for a surfer/student vernacular lifestyle.
That is how you sell cameras and who you make them for and why. Get the shot, where you can, with the camera in the hands of the most keen people.
And just to prove I'm not making my story up: