Originally posted by Uluru Pentax is the only brand in the market that does not have a classic 28mm or 35mm equivalent lenses.
In APS-C those would be 19mm and 23mm. I have stated it many times, it is a terrible oversight. One 23mm f2 lens instead of DA21would draw MUCH more people to try Pentax DSLRs.
Look at Leica T: a brand new system, and it starts with a 23mm Summicron f2 lens + kit zoom.
I have been riding this hobby horse in numerous posts here. "Terrible oversight" is not too strong a phrase to describe the situation, if the midrange zoom is just not your ticket.
But wait! Pentax the only slacker here?? There is no APS-C or smaller format manufacturer offering the modern version of a circa 1980 line of up-to-date, all around practical, totable primes under 180mm FF focal length. There is no NOT designed to be IQ-compromised 28mm equivalent prime lens from Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony, Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic*, Samsung (?)... no one! Fuji could get there if they replaced the pancake 19mm. But then you'd be stuck with the oddball X-trans, 16mp, artifact-producing sensor. That's a nice fast 14mm they've got, though! The situation for the 35mm equivalent "journalists'/landscape-or-urban normal" -- which should be an economical option -- is almost as bad. A mediocrity like the 24/2.8 Nikkor AF-D, for example, besides being old, was designed from the start to be cheap. It just doesn't count. I keep the 24/2.8 AI MF for IQ reasons; and I can't even meter with it on my N75 or N80.
And how about the Nikon full frame frame option, for example, should you think they've got it covered? Try this: A from-the-'80's retrofocus 20mm; a 28/2.8 G with heavy field curvature (tricky); a "forced-to-fill-FF" 35mm DX plastic consumer zoom-complementer... an obsolescent 35/2.0 AF-D... or a new, O.K., but apparently disappointing 35/1.8 AF-S G for FX; a just-O.K., old school 50/1.8 AF-D, or a pretty decent, but "gelded" AF-S G at f.1.8 (the f.1.4 being all right, but less flat field and not better at comparable apertures); a surprisingly sharp and economical old school 4-element 85/1.8, plagued (for some) by an uncharacteristically warm -- for Nikon -- and, its said, difficult to correct color balance; and a not-their-best macro lens (heavy, slow) at 105mm... or, of course, the older design f.1.8. This is NOT exactly a compelling line up choice for prime users looking for top notch results today. Hence, the "Holy Trinity" (bring along your assistant bearer boy). And no, I don't need and don't want massive and costly f.1.4's. You could go Zeiss old school MF, I guess... if you can work your way around the tricky -- I know, "artistic" -- idiosyncrasies in that line.
So as you, and others have noted, there is a opportunity of sorts here for a manufacturer which is content to be a niche player to step up and fill the vacuum. But I am very sure you are greatly overestimating the effect on the market such a move would would generate. Not even this would likely "save Pentax", if the gloomier of the armchair economist prognosticators should turn out to be right (not that these types have a glittering track record). Forget the "build a better mousetrap" thing in this market.
* The new Panasonic/Leica 15mm/1.8 (30mm FF-eq. on m4/3) has been previewed. The first report I've seen left me disappointed.