OT, the other part of the formula that TREK got wrong was that nobody trained the dealers on how to sell the things. My understanding is that any shop selling TREK has to buy a minimum number of bikes per year; and the years they sold the R200, every dealer got one whether they wanted it or not. Most shops sat the thing in the darkest corner they had, and even when customers showed interest in it, the sales staff shunted them back to the main part of the showroom floor. The only sales they made were from people coming in specifically looking for an R200 and refusing to be dissuaded from buying it. The mind boggles when one thinks how many they could have sold if they'd been trying!
Sure there's room in the market for an upright brand to make a recumbent. If they design their own, though, they should avoid the Trek mistakes. They should have someone familiar with the recumbent world help design it, and it should be a light sporty, dare I say "sexy?" model. And they shouldn't force the bikes on an unwilling and untrained distributor network.