To quote yourself, I wonder how many of these they're going to sell - 1 or 2?
One has to be nuts to buy these when there are the Panasonic versions floating around. And pay more for the artificially reduced max. apertures? Just why would anyone do this - because f/1.8 isn't Leica-styley enough, and real Leica is f/1.4 or f/2? :-)
Typical Leica tactics.
Maybe the reason why this ploy might work is because Leica customers have their head in the said and don't know what else exists out there?
Therefore, they wouldn't know these 2 lenses are actually Panasonic lenses artificially slowed-down to f2 and rebranded Leica at 4x the price?
So Leica is putting a new spin on the "less is more" motto.
I reckon they limit the lens to f/2 for slightly better performance.
Come on, the Panasonics can't be that bad; they are modern lenses after all.
Anyway, I wonder if it's possible to "jailbreak" these Leicas.
For me looks like a cheap well known marketing trick, double the price for an item, then sell it one week later at 50% discount, some fast food chain restaurants in Qatar follow this strategy: they are on paper very expensive, however they give 50% discount coupons for practically everybody, once the 50% rebate applied they are in line with the market prices.
The customer feels he has saved money, however he just paid the regular price.
Same here, the customer will see the price of the Leica version then compare, find the panasonic cheaper and better and buy, while feeling he saved money.....
The actual objective is to sell Panasonic lenses....even if they sell zero leicas, it's still profitable, if they manage to sell, it's even better
I don't think this is a viable strategy, and doubly so because these are, after all, separate companies and each cares about its own bottom line first and foremost. :o