Cooter and I, who bought our Reds used aren't eligible for a stage 2 or 3 upgrade (unless his are "un-executed"). So, no early adopter incentive here (other than having the camera in hand). I wish I had got in a year earlier because it's actually an amazing deal. Somewhere around $20k savings for customer loyalty appreciation is rather astounding.
Don't get me wrong, I was one hour away from owning an Epic and have no doubt I will eventually go that direction.
I'm just under very heavy production and when I weighed (pun intended) the difference between an extra new RED One, for about 1/2 the price of a hand built Epic, which stripped own is about a 3 to 4 pound difference I figured I could eat my wheaties and lift 4 extra pounds.
I'm a big fan of RED and not because of the actual camera, but the look the camera produces. We're now in the process of cutting 10 videos. 85% of the footage is from the two REDs, 10% from the Sony FS100 and 5% from the 5d2.
The 5d2 looks good under certain circumstances, the Sony no matter what I do looks like Video and the RED looks like movie film and even knocked down to prorezz, still looks 50% better, period, bet ya money, etc. etc.
Now where this all goes in tech none of us know, because things can change in a heartbeat, but the only thing any of us want RED to do is get their cameras to market and finsihed, everything on the shelf, ready to buy.
IMO
BC