Wow dude! D'you actually work for Canon? I'm trying to point out that the market changed dramatically, in order to sell the price has to be right. I'm not talking just about Canon. My kit ain't cheap bruv, I'm just not 100% convinced it's worth all that money. I know a lot of people who think the same way. DSLRs age very quickly, too quickly. It's not about how much you spend but what you get. Camera manufacturers want you to spend 4k+ for a semi-pro body every 4 years; roughly. And now change a system as well. Given the economy, the technology and, most of all, the way people consume photography 4k price tag dramatically limits your sales volume. Higher price will not make up for it. It's simple. If this continues the camera as we know it, DSLR, will extinct because of greed of the likes of Canon.
It should actually be well below 3k. Well below. Producing D7, D7.5, D6.25 etc will not help either.
I definitely do not work for Canon, and I totally get your points that the market changed drastically but I do not get your correlation between the market and the cost of producing the camera. Basically it seems like you are saying the camera should cost $3,000 but with no reference point for your statement. The fact is Canon does produce camera bodies at every price point on the spectrum, so if this one seems overpriced to you then they have plenty of other options to choose from.
For example, if it cost Canon $3600 to make this camera body how could they possibly sell it for $3,000? If it did cost them $3600 to make it (totally theoretical figure by the way) then how would a pandemic, shrinking customer base, shorter camera body lifespan, or any other factor that you mentioned decrease the cost of producing that body to the point to where they could sell it for $3,000?
My two main points are that Canon already has plenty of cheaper bodies (definitely more FF bodies than ever before) and nothing that you have mentioned so far (pandemic, shrinking customer base, faster R&D cycles, etc) would decrease the production cost of the camera.
This is why I bring up the S1H and the cost of the RF lenses when pricing discussions arise. Both Canon and Panasonic know more about the current market realities than everyone on this forum put together yet they still chose to price their products at what can be considered a premium compared to the competition. This is my reference point for stating that they probably simply cannot go any lower without losing money on every sale and is the main reason why I think the R5 will be $3999 at least at launch.
Now what Canon may do is reduce the number of bodies they produce in the future due to the lack of customer revenue, lengthen their R&D times, maybe even just make fewer higher end bodies; to me those would all be more logical responses to the market conditions that you mentioned but for the R5 the production cost is already there and Canon has no choice but to try to recover it which is probably at a price point well above $3K USD.