If you look to the current generation of mFT cameras and lenses, there was tremendous progress: quality, performance, ergonomics, handling, and features. Hardly any manufacturer put so many innovative things in its camera line up.
Also, you statement that there was nothing new in the GM1 to E-P5 space, is wrong. There is the classic PEN-F, finally with build-in view finder, the E-PL9, and the GX9.
To me, there are a lot of new offers of the types of cameras, you are looking for.
His point, and some of the same point I have also made is:
Yes, there have been advancements, but not in the body class that a good number of potential buyers want to stick to (midsize rangefinder/DSLR). For example, you list the E-PL9 and GX-9 as cameras he is looking for, yet both miss his stated target in shutter ability: 1/8000 second top shutter speed. Same thing with the G85. The Pen-F has the 20mpx sensor and 1/8000, but AF ability is noted as 'average'. The EM-5 mk II is an excellent camera but 3 years old and we're
still waiting for an announced replacement, also
still waiting for a camera besides the EM1 to feature the OSPDAF-enhanced 20mpx sensor. If you want to talk absolutes, m43 OSPDAF was first announced in the original EM1 in
2013, five freaking years - half a decade! - ago, and yet we STILL have only ONE camera that features it available for purchase as new!!
So, so far, it seems that m43 is constantly missing the 'target' with not creating the ideal rangefinder body, say a
true follow-up to the very well regarded GX7. The constant trope that m43 users want everything but aren't willing to pay is just that, a trope: the GX9 isn't exactly cheap by mid-level standards yet a good number of people decided to buy. So, if a $1,000 camera comes out with the features and design that they want, they are buying.
