What delay on the EVF? I don't see one when I use it. You also get a look-around region, which no other EVF has ever done - because it's a good feature from an OVF and we thought it would be useful, and it is.
An OVF has a 180 degree phase delay in what you're seeing compared to what you're recording.....
The lack of auto focus is for a number of reasons, not least PL mount lenses don't have motors in them.
As for features, no, there's no "auto" focus, exposure or the like, but there's lots of useful features for professional movie making, varispeed, slowmo, raw, various timecode and sync options, various helper functions to ensure sharpness of focus, correct exposure, waveforms, histograms, spot meters etc, so on and so forth. What is different is the 16 major builds of software in the last year, each one adding new features and improved image quality.
Sure, shooting raw came from DSLRs, but our RAW is compressed so you can record 30fps 4k raw onto a compact flash - you just can't do that kind of datarate for standard uncompressed or losslessly compressed raw. Making that work is a non-trivial task.
Of course, there's only one other camera out there doing 4k, and it's the size of a PC, and I'd hate to try and hand hold the thing, and you can't buy it, only rent it.
The owner of RED, Jim Jannard founded Oakley, and was owner until recently. He's also a major camera collector, owning more cameras than anyone else I know - probably more cameras of all kinds - stills, movie, video - all formats - than I've had hot dinners. He's a camera fanatic. RED came about because he wanted the "perfect" camera for himself. I'm lucky enough to have been able to help with many aspects of the RED project so far. As for how it's done for the price point - bloody hard work is the answer there... :-)
Graeme