Originally posted by biz-engineer Good point, indeed the 60-250 collar is positioned almost at the same place and the collar on the 70-200.
---------- Post added 18-12-15 at 02:10 ----------
The Nikon version is released and available for purchase :-)
Pentax 70-210 is physically wider lens than the 60-250. There is even less space left for fingers to wrap around the grip.
It is a serious design flaw, if you admit it or not (I'll come to this in a few lines). Nikon don't have such a problem because they know a thing or two about design clearances, and have made gazillions of 70-210 to perfect them — for all users, in all conditions.
For example, this Pentax lens cannot be used even by an adult for an hour or two, in good weather, barehanded. But what about adverse weather? Gloves for use in low temperatures? You notice that in Nikon lens, tripod collar is connected with the mount lock with an elongated funnel shape — that is space allocated for your fingers and camera grip clearance, which Pentax lens don't have. Did Ricoh thought of use with the gloves?
This Pentax design fails — it is not good even to start thinking about it.
However, this falsely "positivistic" attitude here, is only to company's detriment. Ricoh shows that they need to be whipped into more serious thinking, and you as a potential user must inform them and whip them. Because if that goofy design is released, people will complain within weeks, and the investment sinks. Then, if design is not good enough for use in adverse weather, then the lens will not sell enough, and people who might have used Pentax gear more seriously will replace it in due time (thanks to design fault of the Pentax lens), and purchase Nikon system instead.
Thus your proposal above is falsely positivistic, I regret to say but it is very typical of the PF, and is dangerous.