...not making a more reasonably priced high meg CFV back with a rotating sensor which I think are mutually exclusive concepts anyway.
Just my 2¢.
-Marc
Marc, I have to disagree with you. Wanting support for the V system has nothing to do with being a luddite or against technology's development; just makes a lot of business sense, whilst Hasselblad's choices since they got digital apparently didn't, if one sees their results compared to those of Phamiya; think about their position on open vs closed system and the various turns on that issue, not last the H4X (finally!) but with the bizarre decision to sell it only to H1/H2 updaters (why oh why!?!?), the development of the 28 for cropped sensors not foreseeing that sensors would get bigger (no Einstein needed to figure that one out), etc. This has nothing to do with the quality of their cameras and products, which are great; it has everything to do with their management and business decisions.
So, back to the OP's point, making the existing CFV 50 a rotating back, leaving the trigger mechanism where it is (or getting rid of it, a cable solution works better anyway in practice - though less elegant aesthetically - than the one they have now), and keeping it at the same price the CFV sells now would make for almost no R&D costs and would sell a ton - even if for some years only as you say, maybe, which is however debatable IMO. With that money, develop whatever technology you like for the H, while keeping two different lines of cameras alive in the meantime. The V system per se - I mean, a simple box with various prisms/backs/etc - is still a very competitive one IMHO for a lot of application where AF is not needed; plus, it's a fact that the V is the most popular MF system out there as far as units sold historically and bodies/lenses available on the market.
Not supporting it completely? Of course I see your point on that, in fact I think that not supporting it completely and just moving on would have been an acceptable choice, a poor one IMHO but a sound choice compare to what they actually did (look at what Leica did with the R, not dissimilar, and how it did end after the Module R: lot of unhappy users there); to keep supporting it as they are doing now, on the other end, with a back that is basically unusable on the very camera it has been designed to work with (unless you only shoot in landscape all the time!), makes no sense at all.
One last thing worth thinking about: if what I said above wouldn't make any sense, why do you think Leaf invested in developing and building the R backs in V mount?
Well, for me personally the answer is very simple, I have one on order which is supposed to get here next week. I would have got an Hasselblad back instead, but alas there wasn't one properly designed; and I am pretty sure I am not the only one. That's lot of money that Hasselblad is not collecting, while others reap the benefits of poor business & development decisions.