Further thoughts: One reason for the success of the D70 is that it is a good low-end professional camera with a metal body, good feature set and so on. From my perspective as a professor watching people buy the D70, they bought it because 1. they could afford it and 2. because they had no prior allegiance to another manufacturers. It is rare to switch brands because of the lens mounts - usually people have more invested in lenses and peripherals than they do in the body. Nikon were smart, they have got people to invest in their line of gear. However, I can imagine that the D70 looked too cheap according to Nikon's Ker-ching offices and by splitting the D70 into two markets, the prosumer and the low-end professional, they may actually do themselves some damage. The D70 is an investment as a professional into a line of cameras, into their futures, that is affordable. If, and I'll make an assumption, that the D70 successor is a little more expensive, and the lower end model is the same or perhaps a little cheaper but with a limited feature set and maybe a plastic body (á la the Canon 350D) then the digital SLR default of Canon may take people away again. From my experience people are buying the 20D if they can afford it (previously the 10D), and the D70 if they cannot. Only one that I know bought the 300D, and I know one other who has invested in the 350D but only because it is only to be used for photographing artwork and so the plastic body is a moot point. Naturally my sample set is very small, but this does seem to be the pattern and splitting the D70's market may not be wisest move.