A problem for the tech camera genre is that pixel technology is merging to be the same in 135 and MFD.
Before medium format sensors where in a zone where they could both have a bit higher pixel count and at the same time a larger pixel, and they would also allow themselves to waste some high ISO performance by not having micro lenses.
This allowed medium format sensors to function with lens designs that was impossible on the smaller formats, which is symmetric or weak retrofocus wides, providing a unique feature set, near distortion-free lenses with a large range of movements.
Now with pixel sizes just as small on MFD like on 135, and the same desires regarding ISO performance, the same limitations regarding lens designs is there which means that lenses must be designed in the same way as for the smaller formats.
It's quite obvious that both Rodenstock Digarons and Schneider Digitars are both obsolete in terms of design when it comes to supporting the new MFD king, Sony, but thanks to the extremely good tonality and dynamic range of the Sony some of this over-capacity can be used to do the impossible. Due to subject- and condition-dependent gradual degradations of image quality in shifted areas its hard to quickly get a grip of exactly how these systems perform. I'm myself thrown between hope and despair. It will for sure make images on the wides with quite large shift range, but when does the subtle color degradations become "too much"? That's the hard part...
MFD surely has got better and more all-around with CMOS, but it has also lost some of its originality. It's not really CMOSs fault as such, but rather the inability to focus on other properties than megapixels and dynamic range. Had they made a 60MP version put in some light shields in the design, and perhaps dropping or at least reduce the aggressiveness of the microlenses I think it could have been the most tech cam friendly sensor ever. When BSI then arrives they could reduce well depth and then start increasing pixel count again without losing angular response (when you have deep wells you need large pixels to have good angular response, it's simple geometry)
If I would have had the power to adjust the CMOS design target I'm not sure if I would have changed them from the current though. There's a reality out there and indeed I think megapixel is king, to stay attractive MFD needs to keep a good megapixel distance to the current 135 which is at 50 now. It's really not about lens quality, that is a too complex discussion, just hit them with the head with twice the amount of megapixels and watch it sell. Holding back ISO performance and megapixels to keep the wide angle tech cam niche happy just isn't worth it from a business perspective, it's then better to try convince the niche run on a back which isn't designed for them. Ideally one would make two sensors with different design targets, but it's probably unrealistic from a development cost perspective.
