I think the reason so many people are disappointed is that they're not (yet) the target market. Their focus is reaching new film users and growing that market first, and makes sense.
They can start with a relatively simple, straightforward, easy to use camera that's several notches above the current 'reusable disposable' 35mm plastic crud in usability and quality, but still cheap enough to be a reasonably spontaneous or gift-style purchase for the 'film interested' alongside the current crop of Instax and Polaroid cameras.
People bitch about zone focusing being lame or a cop out, but forget that so many well regarded cameras used it... Olympus Pen series, Trip 35, XA2-4, later Minolta Hi-Matics, etc. And let's not forget that many street and other photographers use zone/pre focus regardless in order to shoot fast and get the shot.
Adding rangefinders or AF adds complexity cost, and the market for a new film cameras drifts downwards sharply once the price drifts north of a few hundred. Remember there's still millions of functional cameras out there on the used market which any new 35mm camera has to compete with, and with a few notable exceptions, most are still dirt cheap compared to what they cost new.
Now, not everyone wants to play in the secondhand market, and are happy to pay some amount of premium for a new camera with a warranty and support. But let's say Pentax eventually produce a lovely all-manual, mostly-metal SLR or rangefinder for US$1000, which would be an absolute minimum price (it'd probably be a lot more). That's a whole lot better than what Leica will charge you for anything new, for sure. But for an SLR... I mean, for under half that you can get a very tidy F2 or FM... and the cost a good CLA too.
Pentax/Ricoh, to their credit, are playing this very cautiously. They realise they're playing in a very niche market, and need to produce cameras they can actually produce a competitive product in.
With that in mind, I don't see any point in producing a modern AF SLR at this point. They're a dime a dozen, cheap and unwanted due to the lack of nostalgic hipster appeal and unlike the earlier manual cameras of decades prior, many still work without the problems the older cameras are now developing.
Personally I'd nix that idea, and replace it a simple 6x7 rangefinder, maybe fixed MF lens and electronic leaf shutter (with manual and AE controls) to keep costs down. Plenty of people out there would like a Mamiya 7, but also maintain ownership of both their kidneys.
