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

You said, "My guess is that some early confusion about what the problem really was, a slow-to-react HQ and some poor lines of communication between HQ and field repair offices put them really behind the 8-ball and by the time they actually understood the problem, the finance guys clamped down and told them to limit how much this would cost to keep the current quarter's numbers from going south."

Sounds like you are saying that the finance guys prevented the engineers from getting the fix out to service centers.

This article says they acknowledged the problem in Sept. Do you really think Nikon is going to advertise that they have a problem and tell users how to look for it? Be realistic. The result of that would be a lot of misdiagnosed cameras coming back to Nikon for service they didn't need. If you read Thom's blog you might recall him saying that a large percentage of the reports he go were misdiagnosed. Nikon's approach was to try to deal with cameras as they came back for repair. That is a pretty standard way to deal with such things.

--
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