Luminous Leica X1 update on AF and MF

El Illuminati Landscapati has posted an update to their Leica X1 field-report, addressing auto-focus and manual-focus related issues. The original review is above the update for those who may have missed it earlier on.

And this brings up an interesting point that goes to show the "SLR Traditionalism" in play. Photographers had been clamoring loudly and clearly for years that they wanted compact-cameras with larger sensors. Their requests were mostly falling on deaf ears as the companies better-equipped to make such cameras ignored such requests because of the "SLR Traditionalist" mentality.

There are three companies that are now offering compact (fixed-lens-sensor) cameras with larger-than-small sensors, and all three are not exactly in the list of top camera sellers: Sigma with its Foveonesque DP-series, Ricoh with its new GXR macro-block, and Leica with the X1.

Can any of the SLR manufacturer apologists justify this? :) Sigma, Leica and Ricoh are better equipped than Canon, Nikon, Sony, et al to make these type of cameras? Leica is still fighting the auto-focus wars of the last century, and Sigma is making cameras with the operational performance of a 1999 digital camera (exaggeration for emphasis). These companies were better equipped than the SLR makers?