Nikon responds- "rapid deterioration in the market occurred and fiercer competition"

The D300s was released after the D700.

I suspect they believe that that loss will be much less than the combination of customers gained by expanding to other demographics with the D800, and those who find the money for the D4. The D700 probably lost them a lot of D3 sales.

1. The readers of dpreview probably represent a very small portion of Nikon's potential customers. What is known here is not known to all. 
2. Not everyone here thinks Nikon mishandled the problem as badly as you imply.
3. Teething problems happen with radically new products. It wasn't something Nikon did intentionally.

When the economy is weak, and all DSLR sales are down, rebate incentives are often used to move product. If the Yen allows them to afford rebates it makes more sense to keep the factories at capacity than to lay people off.

Do you own much audio equipment? My experience has been that large audio equipment companies are much worse than Nikon. I bought a fairly expensive Pioneer receive sometime ago. It turned out that there was a QC problem with a small component deep in the bowels of the receiver. The problem was well known on an audio forum I followed at the time. There was a DIY repair posted for the very skillled. Pioneer never acknowledged the problem. There service centers seemed to replace the bad component with a bad component and units failed shortly after they returned from service. Most owners ended up with a doorstop. Pioneer is still going strong.

Nikon service centers tried to repair the left AF problem when cameras were sent to them. It seems that it took a long time to find a proper fix. Nikon didn't do a recall because it didn't affect all units. At most, 20% were affected. No company does a recall for that kind of percentage. Making a public announcement about it would be advertising that they had problems. The result would be that the problem was wider known, and fewer people would buy from them.

Are you old enough to recall Ford's handling of the Pinto fires? How about when their SUV rolled over when a tire blew? Recall how they handled that?

Companies don't do this out of stupidity or spite. They do it because they have learned that this is the most cost-effective way to deal with problems. We don't reward companies for being honest and open about QC problems. It is the same with politicians. They lie to us because we punish them for telling the truth. We elect those who tell us what we want to hear, even if we know it is a lie. "Read my lips. No new taxes."

--
Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell