Roland, I wish I had that kind of pull with CV/Zeiss. I would like to see a fast 21 (no surprise), but at $6000 Leica's offering is a bit steep. Both Zeiss and VC are of course looking at the possibility of one, most likely a f2, but it is all dependent on what the market will accept. Once you get down below f2.8 with fast lenses, design gets even more complex and you have to figure out how to correct for vignetting, coma etc which gets more pronounced as you go wider.
As for pricing versus quality. The VC and Zeiss lenses are made in Japan (apart from the 15f2.8 and the 85f2) and the quality is the same from a manufacturing point. Where there are differences is in the designs. VC starts very much with a blank sheet and designs what they can make, glass composition, coating, aspherical or not, size and price. They are really not bound by a "past", except when they do speciality lenses like the Heliar 50f2 and f3.5. Just look at the 50f1.5 Nokton, first 50mm for 35mm film cameras with two aspherical surfaces on the same element, the 35f1.2 with 3 aspherical surfaces, the 12f5.6 or the 15f4.5. These were and still are cutting edge designs! Zeiss follows a more traditional approach and looks at their old designs and modify them for modern glass and modern coatings. The cost factor probably has more to do with the fact that CV sells their lenses to the importer, whilst Zeiss buys theirs from CV and adds a bit of margin on to that, before it goes to the importer.
Of course they discuss what will be made under one brand or the other. It would be stupid not to. It is a small market segment and "internal" fighting over f-stops and focal length would be detrimental. With Leica concentrating on what they do best, cutting edge optics with no holds barred when it comes to pricing - the medium priced market is left to CV/Zeiss to fill. There is also a strong competition from the used market and pricing has to take that into consideration.
As for fast 21's - I have suggested one, but it remains to be seen what will come.
