I think this is an interesting take. They can take some pressure out of expectations towards future products, from costumers, but maybe also from commenters/bloggers/imaging news sites. As the position is clearly defined a lot of useless comments towards the new forthcoming release might be attenuated. (of course, they will still come, the internet is a tough and sometimes nasty animal).
Recent news from Olympus, as sad as I am seeing any proper camera company vanishing, might play into their hand right at the time when they will release a crop camera with hopefully some qualities that they had in common with Olympus: rich in heritage, gerat ergonomics, tough, sealed, compact, long reach (due to crop) and maybe fast. At least if you take the upper class Olympus cameras, which share a similar body size wise with the K-new
Compare camera dimensions side by side
If they can deliver on speed in regard to AF and FPS this might be an attractive alternative for a disappointed Olympus subgroup.
And maybe the empasis on the OVF might find some sympathy with Canon and Nikon shooters too, that enjoyed their look through the prism and see that these companies might sooner or later abandon these products.
While this statement probably excludes a quick addition of a mirrorless camera under the Pentax brand, there still might ways of Ricoh to add this option in future products, but maybe under a new system, based on GR or GXR? It would be a new system in any case, with new lenses and new mount. I must say I would like to see the Pentax Ricoh qualities and philosophy beeing transformed into a mirrorless system. But I would not be one of the early adopters, and I think this might be the case with many Pentax users, explaining why this has not happened until now.