I personally would like to see Pentax return to a position as a top tier lens maker, as they were at one time. The FA Limited designs certainly show that they can still produce great lenses, at a somewhat reasonable price. They have showed that they are still capable of new great lens with the 100 Macro. They have the coatings with their new ghostless. They need to market that. The new DA 35/2.8 also shows that they can also perform at the entry level lens market. In that they have leveled the playing field in terms of the retail price, across both the physical and virtual retailers, they need to give the consumer who is paying for all of this in the end, something worthwhile to purchase while not feeling that they were just mugged.
It would be wonderful if Ricoh/Pentax were to bring back some of the old lens designers as consultants, to sprinkle some more of their pixie dust, imparting their knowledge and skill back in to the company. Not everything is just digital design - there is the judgement factor where by decisions are made in terms of balancing one factor against the others in order to come up with the perfect blend - the magic. That is the pixie dust - and it is learned, just not a set of automagically generated numbers.
At one time, I was consulting for a very well known corporation on a project. We had a problem on a project. In an earlier era there was lots of talent in this discipline available - however no longer. The Chairman of the Board / CEO found a 95 year old past employee (PhD) that he begged to come back to help. He arrived in a wheelchair, dual oxygen tanks and attended by 3 of the world's most beautiful nurses and a full time doctor. He had 200 of the top engineers within the company ready and willing to do what ever, run what ever simulations / test that needed to be done. Week by week he actually grew younger - he was needed (and there really was no pressure on him). He solved the insurmountable problem with a pretty unique design, project was successful with 6 new world records. And his knowledge and insight into the problem area and how he arrived at the design was imparted to a new generation of engineers - that was the black magic - or in Pentax's case - the pixie dust.
I know that all of this takes time, however this reminds me of a developer buying a promising but run down property. They have a decision to make - juice up the rents and then fix the property, or fix up and rehab the property and then up the rents to what they will command.....