I think the pro sports shooters and press photographers look more at reliability and perhaps lens availability rather than resolution as a criteria when selecting a camera. Most images are published on-line these days and they have no need for ultra high resolution. They are willing to pay a premium price for ruggedness and reliability.

Certainly they can afford the hardware needed to handle large files but it's just not necessary. They want to move thousands of files quickly with little or no editing.

You might argue that high res is needed for printing and I will agree to some extent but, the female Cardinal image on a log (3rd from the bottom) was shot with a Canon 40D ... It is printed 16x20 and hanging in my kitchen and it looks great.

I think the biggest advantage of a high res sensor is crop ability......you can crop away a large number of pixels and maintain good image quality.

Anyway, like Brant said, they make many cameras .... can't wait to see your images from the R1 !!!