Nikon's long glass problem, as I see it, is not the fast supertelephoto primes (other than their prices) - it is the 70-200 (new one may have fixed this), the very old 300 f4, and the 80-400. For a long while, the 70-300 mm consumer AF-S VR zoom was the best stabilized Nikkor longer than 120mm and less expensive than the 300 f2.8 (on FX). The first 70-200 f2.8 VR was really a (superb) DX lens, with corner sharpness issues on FX that were worse than the 70-300, the 70-200 f4 VR doesn't exist, the 300mm f4 isn't stabilized, and the 80-400 is a very old lens with slow AF and some sharpness problems (the newest 70-300 AF-S VR is a sharper lens than the 10 year old 80-400). The fast primes and the 200-400 are superb lenses (as are Canon's equivalents, and for that matter Sony, Pentax, Leica and Mamiya versions of similar lenses - superteles are expensive to build, but not all that hard to design), but both expensive and very heavy (inherent in the type of lens, not Nikon's fault). Hopefully the new 70-200 will be a true FX lens, and fill some of that gap, and Nikon will release a mid-priced (much more expensive than the 70-300 AF-S VR, but cheaper than the 300 f2.
lens that replaces the old 80-400. If we had a truly good 70-200 FX (we may now) plus a mid-priced modern 100-400ish, Nikon would have a good line of long glass that bridges the gap in price and weight to the expensive big primes and the 200-400.
-Dan
