Originally posted by btnapa Derek, you-da-man!
Your analysis is so right on. Do you work for a consulting firm? Your language is consulting/expert speak and I know companies pay big bucks for that. And I agree with your wish list.
With that said, I think the real threat is from the smart phone industry not necessarily from other camera manufacturers. Camera sales numbers are dropping because phones are offering more advanced camera functions with every new release. I know they will not replace cameras totally but you know the old adage, "the best camera is the one you have with you when the moment is right." And you know with our phones literally glued to our hands 24/7, they are bound to put a dent in the camera (still and video) industry sales.
To me you can't do anything against Smartphone except manufacturing smartphones yourself. The good thing with theses thing is that their use is so intensive that even now that it no longer possible to see any gain with the new smartphone models, people are still bound to buy some to replace the old broken one. Because usage is intensive, that still happen quite fast. And in developping country not everybody has a smartphone yet. You can sell to them.
For DSLR even couting mirorless I think the issue is different. All the people that are willing to get a fancy camera and have the money for it already brought it. The new models sure have better specs but for most people it make no difference. 12MP or 24MP or 52MP is still more than enough. AF is good enough on all models if you don't do action and otherwise you need an advenced model but theses one got the issue fixed some time ago too. Pixel shift and alike are gadget. As well as FF vs APSC... And for that last one FF has been here for years.
There no reason to buy a new fancy camera is your current one is still working. The buying rate slower drop to replacement rate and this kind of stuff can work for a dozen year if it doesn't get intensive use anyway.
In the end, the last feature that made a difference was when we switched from CCD to CMOS. The picture dynamic range and the high iso performance improved a lot. It opened new usage like low light without flash, in particular with fast primes and also single frame HDR. Since there no major new feature, nothing that can justify for most people to replace their existing camera.
The thing that can count the number of time the photosite saturated could be such a thing because you would not have to care of exposure anymore and only low light would be an issue. You could capture a 20 or 30EV picture in one shoot and this would unlock very low sensitivity mode like iso 10. Other possibility, if you gain again 2EV of low light performance, people would buy because it would improve their experience. The only issue is that this also mean more people will get this in their phones too reducing the need for DSLRs.
The rest is detail and because it evolve slowly you need many years to make a difference. Sony got 0.2-0.3 EV performance with latest FF vs the D800 that was lauched few years ago. To make it visible to 1EV, if the rate of improvements doesn't change, that 10-15 years cycle.