Let's take a quick reality check. RED has never made a medium format still camera, and so far has shown only pie-in-the-sky bad computer renderings of medium format cameras they'd like to build and may someday ship. RED are currently shipping a $30K camera that is the size of a small enlarger and is capable of stills with the resolution of a five year old point and shoot. RED's main products are hype and vaporware, which are selling like hotcakes to fanboys on the internet, none of whom will never spend $30K on a camera of any sort, still or video.
To some extent your right, other than RED has sold a lot of the original RED's in 12 months and by all accounts more than all three ENG makers combined, so they can produce a product.
As far as making a medium format camera I guess RED is pretty much the same as all larger than 35mm speciality cameras, (is there really medium format anymore) in that they announce it, gauge the reaction, change the specs or the complete idea, then slowly come out with the system or parts of the system.
The interesting thing about the RED is it still relies on lenses in the marketplace (i.e. Mamiya) though larger than 35mm format still cameras have also followed this route for well . .. ever, because with current cameras, other than the Hasselblad H, there has not been a real clean sheet of paper camera system built in any format, unless the Leica makes it to market.
The Leica is interesting because along with Hasselblad they are the only two brands that carry any consumer recognition and bling factor at the country club. Tell someone you use Leica or Blad and they go yea wow, though in the real world bling doesn't pay the bills, the photos do and in the real world waiting for anything, firmware, decent focusing, stable software just doesn't cut it.
I wish Leica well, hope the camera comes out working on all fronts with all the lenses on the shelf, (and under a billion dollars) though if Leica doesn't put a cmos sensor in that thing and offer actual high iso, they can pretty much wrap up the whole thought of selling these things in bulk because nobody needs another slow iso camera that shoots one frame every year and a half.
Deep down I think a lot of us a cheering for RED as it would be great if someone broke the mold and delivered exactly as promised, made it professional, made it upgradable and affordable.
The thing is you kind of have this feeling that by the time the RED or the Leica are full featured ready to buy, Canon or Nikon (or both) will have stitched two 24x36 sensors together and sell a $10,000 camera that has 50 mpx, shoots video and makes coffee and toast between setups.
Then again you kind of get the feeling that by the time the RED or Leica are full featured and ready to buy, 95% of our photography will be viewed on computer or TV screens rather than print and at that point anything over 4k wide is just overkill and any format other than 16x9 horizontal is a legacy from the past.
As far as what RED has actually produced today, you have to give them credit because for nearly a decade film makers have begged for a digital motion camera that would shoot a frame format larger than a asprin and costs less than the space shuttle. Sony, JVC, Canon, Panasonic all sit on their hands and gave the indie guys small tiny incremental upgrades talking about the benefits of 3 ccd's though the systems we're still old ccd based cameras that had the ergonomics of a vhs recorder.
RED did change that thought and don't think the 5dII wasn't a reaction to the RED, though in typical digital marketing fashion the 5dII has features locked out of it, just to protect a professional ENG and prosumer video market that is falling faster than GM stock.
Also RED changed the system of customer to maker communication. RED's own forum has conversations with the owner of the company and are blunt and up front. Try to get the CEO's of Phase One, Canon or Nikon to deal directly in a public forum. You'd have a better chance getting Dick Cheney offer himself up to sodium pentathol.
The days are over when anyone with half a brain is gong to drop $30,000 to $50,000 on a still only camera and wait for stuff to come. We all know that in the world of professional cameras, large rental houses and studios get a deal on equipment, usually a damn good deal and we all know that having to go through the dealer process for a professional camera is just another layer of costs. This doesn't mean some dealers are not worth the money, but it doesn't mean that most of them are just gate keepers that have the makers phone number you don't have.
Today, it's more than money, it's accountability. Heck, Nikon is catching a ration of grief over charging 8 grand for a 25mpx camera which by all accounts has amazing image quality and has the ability to focus on the head of a pin. Nobody is going to drop coin and wait, or worse drop coin and get a response from a maker that the lens, finder, grip, software, is tbd at a later date.
On the flip side if Nikon (or anyone) made a camera with real 2k raw video, manual settings, 25mpx stills and come out with a 35mm 1.4 lens, those cameras would sell off the shelf. If they had made the D3x where the sensor is modular and can be changed as new technology is available everyone would feel a lot more secure in writing the check and buying a case full of lenses.
Instead some people will buy, most people will wait.