Trawling through the blogs I came across this rather interesting one. http://motionlifemediablog.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/the-end-of-an-era/

It covers the way that technology is developing so fast, and the downside of the camera "gurus" out there who initially evangelised about the DSLR revolution before moving on to cameras that mere mortals would have difficulty in affording. The crux of the article is about how camera manufacturers charge for features. Here's an excerpt,

"I’ve made this analogy before, but it still works: imagine if Apple had underestimated the demand for the original iPad, but, upon realizing they had a winner on their hands, decided to charge five times the price of the original iPad for a new iPad 2.  Or maybe Apple could have kept on selling a bare-bones iPad while simultaneously producing an entirely new expensive model that had all the cool features tablet customers craved.  Imagine if your favorite recent iPad or iPhone features, such as a front facing camera or voice recognition, were only available to “pro” users at five times the price.  Do you think consumers would have let Apple get away with that?

The video camera industry is the only industry I can think of that is actively discouraging its most enthusiastic customers from making equipment upgrades."

He has a point, and I know for a fact through direct contact and experience with manufacturers that the final price of a piece of gear is often decided based upon what they think they can get away with, rather than a simple case of evaluating the cost to produce with a workable profit margin.

What the manufacturers have failed to realise is that it is becoming harder and harder to make any money in this industry, yet we are seeing price creep once again and a very quick cycle of upgrades. If you can make your money through the camera industry itself like Philip Bloom etc and can spend all your time making basic musical montages then that is fine. It is a different matter when you have to chase paying clients who are are putting an increasing downward pressure on prices, yet are expecting ever higher quality for what they do pay.

Arguably I would go one further than the article I linked to. Features like 4k and 1080p at 60fps or more are icing on the cake. The reality of what you are paying $15,000 extra for is the ability to shoot without the aliasing issues of DSLR's. Just that one aspect of softness and moire is what really holds back DSLR shooters. The most inexpensive way to solve this is to purchase a camera like the FS100. That still isn't cheap, and has horrendous ergonomics.

As the article alludes to, manufacturers have been alerted to a successful demand for a particular type of equipment and featureset, and now they have decided to take the piss.

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