I'll play the role of Mamiya's advocate here and say I don't think it's so odd!
If the distance markings are good, who cares that you can't focus in the viewfinder? The thing is probably only going to be used at or near infinity anyway. Sure, I wouldn't use it for birding or sports or whatever. But for landscape I imagine it could be quite useful. For that, DOF is determined hyperfocally anyway, right? So as long as the VF gives the centrepoint and I know the FOV, I think this would be a cool thing to have.
When I first got my mammie 6, I spent a roll or two just trying to focus without the VF, relying on the distance markings, just to test them. And the result was amazingly and consistently good. Try it... go blind for a roll!