That analogy is kind of funny to me, even though it makes sense on the surface..but let's not forget that RED came on the scene as the low priced alternative... not as the high end option. They may seem like the high end option to many of us here, but the RED One was competing with the Vipers and F-950s of the production world when it was released, at a fraction of their price.
They would be closer to the Audio Technica in your example, than the Neuman.
Yeah, I get your point, but that's how radically things are changing just over the last couple of years (my god, has it been that long since the release of the 5DII). Red were the ones that really broke a price performance barrier by introducing a image aquisition system capable of major motion picture production for 30K which was stone cold cheap compared to where that price performance was before they came along, but still hardly cheap enough to spark the kind of revolution in film making that the DAW sparked in home audio recording for $2,500 and less.
I guess the DVX100 was pretty exciting and it produced some amazing stuff ie; November, a short lived crime drama series on A&E, a sitcom, and it generated alot of enthusiasm and also other cams that did some amazing work "28 Days Later" etc, but this DSLR stuff seems to have gotten off the hook in comparison. Consequently, Red kinda evolved into this elite Boutique brand that is known for selling a handle for $500 where it use to be leading the revolution. The revolution shifted somewhere along the way.
So now the market expects a camera to deliver a major motion picture image for under 5-6K. That is the new market. Maybe the 5DII was the pre revolution and the AF100 will be the proper revolution that the 5D will give birth to. The beginning is the big sensor. That whole 35mm adapter thing was just goofy at least to me as a still photographer watching the evolution take place. The big sensor is the proper beginning for the revolution in film making , IMO.
The more the market expands, the cheaper everything gets. It seems the DSLR has created more suction for film making tools and that's just going to bring performance that was only available in the 30K plus range into the 3-5K range. Exciting stuff.