Glad I left this thread many days ago. It certainly took a weird turn!
Agree with both sides here.
Doug is a smart and hard working rep of his company and Phase One, with deep and valuable knowledge. We are lucky to have him contribute here. He has gotten a good number of people out of deep holes, so a definite asset. Thank you Doug.
That said, I do feel he missed there was a subtext of his 'boosting' for the XT - many people here, who are highly experienced MF tech users, were reading that their gear was suddenly dated, and their images not as sharp as they could be. To some it came across as new kid telling everyone they have been doing it wrong. This was unintended, a subtext rather than overt, but obviously put people's noses out, as might be expected, given their deep familiarity with digital Tech Camera usage.
The XT is a nice step. That Israeli leaf shutter looks terrific, and the integration with IQ4 very useful. But that's about it. I smile at it being called a 'system' when it's 1 body and 3 lenses. Kind of hilarious compared to Alpa with their huge range of interchangeable bodies, dozens of lenses, tilt adapters, spacers, finders, etc. The XT is very basic at this point.
The Fuji GFX-100 is here and is great, Phase cannot compete with that. The XF is a dinosaur, so clearly Phase has pivoted to tech users, but it grates that Phase ignored tech users at IQ4 launch, just 9 months ago (!) in favor of it's XF, failed to address major issues, when loyal customers had paid a fortune for IQ4 backs only to find they hardly worked with their Tech system, which the preceding IQ3 model did.
All said and done, I think the XT will be great in a few years time. If I was starting afresh, I would seriously consider it. If I was a working tech pro today, I would hold fire. It has not arrived as a system as yet.
(Oh, and... long term tech user here (4 bodies) My FPS has 68,000 exposures and counting- and let me assure you, FPS 'shutter shock' is not an issue. The one exception: long lenses around 200/ 300mm not damped/ properly supported, where you should be using ES anyways. So that's a red herring. Mirror slap in the XF is a far bigger issue, but I don't recall that being discussed here when the IQ4 +XF system was being pitched as the best! )