I don't know if it will happen, but if the Leica lenses do eventually embrace af, then they may well attract a wider market capable of the entry fee. I am aware that af exists within that brand, but I'm thinking of the M rangefinder system. It's all very well to explain how you can, after a lifetime on the street, judge focus by the position of the little knob on the ring, but hey, that's useable at f8 and be there, but what about the guy who, like me, would want to use those dream lenses wide open? Guess just ain't gonna cut it. From the relatively brief time I've used af, it is another dimension: put that central mark on the subject, and unless you are playing Saul games with windows and reflections, where even you become confused, you can get it as quickly as you spot it. No fiddling necessary.
It's great theorising on about careful, controlled and well-considered framing etc. but when you are in the heat of the moment, that's a different proposition. The use of anything as careful as judging sharpness on a screen becomes pretty useless. Sure, on a tripod, the game is something totally else.
Another thing that's silly (IMO) is the way people sometimes bad mouth slr cameras because the screen goes blank when you make the shot. If you were working at 1/25th of a second, you may have a point, but most of the time folks shoot a helluva lot higher up the scale, if only to stay sharpish. Return is so damned fast these days that I'm sure these folks are still quoting remarks made about those wonderful cameras of the 30s. Anyway, if your shot isn't the one you were trying for when you made it, what happens next doesn't much matter anyway - you were gonna blow it. Most of my working life was with hand-held cameras, and any shots I missed were because I didn't think fast enough. On a tripod, mostly with a 6x6 of one sort or another, yes, things were missed because of the flash recharging, not to mention the winding on process. The mirror didn't play much of a part in those losses.
There's so much crap thrown up in the air in photography these days.
Rob