neuroanatomist said:
My mistake. Although, back in 2000 with Canon's first dSLR (their own, that is), there was nowhere in the lineup for any trickling, because there wasn't a lineup, just the one camera. Plus, the D30's $3000 price tag certainly helped them recoup the development costs. After the D60, Canon basically created the consumer dSLR market by launching true 'consumer level' dSLRs.
In the same way that god created man, or that Isaac Newton 'invented' gravity?
Canon might have created the camera for the identified market, but they didn't create the market.
Consumer level is really just a price point for many intents and purposes, the Minolta RD cameras preceded Canon by a few years and they were based not on Dynax 9 type bodies, but the very consumer orientated vectis aps bodies and lenses.
Of course Canon were the first to put it all together in an 'affordable', compact system but they were serving a market rather than creating it.
I'll give canon credit for many innovations and for clever planned obsolescence strategies that keep us buying, but one could argue that the prevalance of expensive, small sensor bridge cameras like the Olympus e10, the Dimage 7, Nikon x800, Fuji 600 series bridge cameras etc actually created the market for consumer DSLRs.
I only say this Neuro, because although you caught up with dramatic pace, you were quite late to the party.
'you weren't there man!' and all that.