For me all is fine their flagship is arround 8 months old and they want to get some discussion on it again... Especially out of PentaxForum
It is a way to say, hey remember that K3, this DSLR of the year it is still here, and you have a nice classy version available if you want!
As it sucking resources from Ricoh, I really think people thinking of that have no idea what they are saying. This prestige edition is the job of a designer (to get the look right), the job of some factory (to change the color of some components) and finally logistics. Who really think that the opticians, software or electronics engineers have to be involved on this? One should understand that we are now specialized as a society (since a few thousand years I think). In terms of design, theirs need at Pentax is so low that they can just pay an agency from time to time or have a few on board, The factory... It is not like using a different paint is that complex! Likely their factory is not even used at 100% capacity anyway!. The logistics finally that no more than one more K30 model, no more than K5-II & K5-IIs options. Nothing special.
The reality is that for APSC, there is no reason to change model yet. Other maker doens't change their flagship every year neither. What Ricoh could do through is to update the K50, something like 24MP Sony sensor, K5-IIs AF module and K3 processing engine. They have something like that of course but still they do not want to release it too soon as it would impact the sale of K3 of course.
Me kinda like to keep a K500 very low priced APN, without any change, a K70 and finally K3. Make sense.
So maybe they could announce the new K50 in a few months, or they could present some new lenses in the line up (like the 70-200 f/2.8, the longer telezoom, the replacement of 12-24, the new DA transtandard). Thoses could be all WR to position Pentax-Ricoh more consistantly.