It's the "people don't cover their mouth when they cough, specially when riding the crammed train" bug. I had escaped the flu season all Winter until now. Thanks for the sentiment, though.
Leica should really create an Image Department. In the digital age, first impressions from "pre-production" cameras make or break a launch, and is a strong marketing tool. Polaroid suffered from poor marketing, and despite of making great gear, they sank their own ship.
Apple's success was based on the fact that, despite their highly-priced offerings, they were widely accepted. Apple still gets a lot of flak, like Leica, about "it's expensive", "it's a cult", "it's a niche [blah blah blah]". But they mastered their image and made it match expectations. I don't think Leica quite understands that. If they do, it's evident something is getting filtered as tone-deaf along the line.
I also suspect that the big wigs muddle their message, much like a good film gets lots of opinions from investors and actors and producers. If they let someone with an innate sense of these things, and let him/her operate the image operation (image as in "marketing") without "do this, do that / ooh! I have a great idea" from the big wigs, they may just pull it off.
I think this sense of tone-deafness has recently been demonstrated in:
http://blog.leica-camera.com/photog...zstan-a-photographic-journey-with-jean-gaumy/ where "The blog will follow Jean Gaumy as he revisits Kyrgyzstan on a photographic journey with the new Leica M" and then after the scrutiny, they stated "Jean Gaumy went to Kyrgyzstan with a Leica M9 in his package, because the Leica M prototype wasn’t ready".
Somebody/a department dedicated to the "online image" would smooth out these wrinkles that are very distracting.
