Originally posted by Foxbat * lenses were never as compact as Limiteds, so I think people that want small primes should relax and wait until Ricoh rolls out f1.8/f2 primes. I'm pretty sure there will be something styled like Takumars from bygone era, with DC motors and WR (20 - 40 Limited, anyone?)
Exactly. There are currently plenty of limited lenses out there, both DA limited (I count 6 including the zoom) and FA limiteds. These, along with the DA 35 and DA 50/FA 50 and DFA 100 macro WR are Pentax's compact lenses now.
Folks act as though Pentax didn't have big lenses in the past, but the FA * line up was not exactly tiny. There clearly were different goals driving the production of, say, the FA 77 limited from the FA *85. Pentax is just trying to give us more options and if the limited lines work best for a photographer, they will still be there. It is just that now we will have the opportunity to buy fast aperture glass that has been engineered to be sharp from wide open.