Well, time to "rabble rouse"...
I couldn't care WHO makes a Pentax lens, as long as it is to their spec (which is so far superior to CaNikon mathematically and in materials). Each line has it's great designers, and the Pentax loss of Hirakawa-San, shows the pure level of incompetence at Hoya. Talk about a "plundering" crap firm. Being fair and balanced, I must say that Hoya and Kenko filters, however, are excellent for skipping across ponds. And their TC's could easily be used for baking torts in (allowing for wax paper fittings).
The 150-450 IS world class, as are other offerings from pentax. They need to "flush out the suckers"- kill redundancy in kit lenses. Offer a wide zoom, basic zoom, tele zoom, maybe a 1.8 normal (in DA only, FF would be a devaluing, stupid idea). Putting a crappy lens on ANY FF is the equivalent of putting clear plastic seat covers and painted plastic hub-caps on a Bentley. Just wrong... Pentax should take the ops capacity and R&D spends for the low end redundancies and put them into differentiated offerings for FF and High end DA.
If one assumes that Pentax is going after niche status in the High Ground (over the next 5 years), this fits. Many times we have heard that at investment banker meetings that Pentax was looking to be positioned once again as the Japanese Leica. Possible, but without focus, it will not happen...
Hoya was smart, and (for a lack of a better word) "prostituted the brand" to get the medical piece. They NEVER had any intentions beyond that.
I bore everyone with another revisit of the RP CEO interview of 12-15 months ago. The long game is already in motion.
Back to lens manufacturing... Use whoever you wish. Nothing wrong with using a sub, as long as you can sue them.... Never assume RP wont sue a poor quality sub. They will.