When I saw the details on the new Instant Rebates from NikonUSA this weekend I had to scratch my head. If you buy a D4, D800, D800E with a 24-70mm or 70-200mm lens this month, you'll get an extra US$200 off the price.
Obviously Nikon isn't discounting these cameras because they aren't selling. What that means to me is that they've got too much stock of those lenses. Which just makes me question even more what's happening on the lens front. These two lenses use glass from and are assembled in the Togichi Japan plant, which has long appeared to be production constrained (and doubly so due to the 2011 quake and subsequent power shortages).
You'll notice that most of the lenses we've seen lately aren't marked Made in Japan. Some of them seem to be getting glass sourced elsewhere, too, as the color rendering is a bit different than we've come to expect from Tochigi. Some lenses that we want, such as an 80-400mm replacement, would almost certainly come out of Togichi (at least before the quake; not sure after). Rebates on the 24-70mm and 70-200mm seem to indicate that capacity at the plant hasn't been used exactly in a way that meets demand.
I suppose someone from NikonUSA will tell me that "no, we're just trying to incentivize switchers," and that's probably true. Except you can't do that unless you've overstocked those lenses in the first place ;~).
Unfortunately, this simply has the likelihood of making these hard-to-get cameras harder to get. Or maybe Nikon knows something about new shipments to the US that'll break the wait lists for good?