The Sony MILC only seems simple until you look inside the chips. There's literally over a billion parts inside them. Sure, assembly labor might be "expensive" but so is building and running a multi-billion dollar semiconductor fabrication plant that goes obsolete in 3 to 5 years.
People who obsess over the complexity or simplicity of product have missed the overall trend in product design and development which is toward ever more complexity but at ever lower costs (look under the hood of the average car and see how much it's changed over time or look at all the car's accessories like power windows that used be only found on very expensive luxury cars).
Sure, a simpler camera might be cheaper to make. But if a more complicated camera offers additional features sought by some customers (e.g., an OVF that shows the actual DR of the scene instead of a headache-inducing EVF with clipped highlights and shadows) and at an affordable price, customers especially the high-end ones will gladly pay for that complexity (and they do).
After decades of development, the SLR mechanism is dirt cheap and worth every penny even if it involves some extra parts and extra labor.
Last edited by photoptimist; 07-15-2017 at 01:10 PM.