I'm not sure it's a pity at all, TBH. There is the Leica/Panasonic alternative, and a couple of Sigmas if you want speed - what the pancake offers is excellent compactness. I often use my Pentax MX with the 40mm f2.8 pancake rather than the 50mm f1.7 simply because it's pocketable - that's worth a couple of stops to me. I've long thought that the best thing Olympus can do with the E series is to take it down the OM path, and they're doing that now - all power to 'em.