Consumer devices development of tech and cost

[varis]

Been glancing at 3d printing over the fence for 1-2 years now, but only very recently actually started with the activity. So still getting an overview where things are going.

What I've found out/understood/concluded so far:

-Major developments happen in the industrial/B2B space and the R&D money is not yet aimed at consumer devices. This trickles down to the consumer space when patents expire (eg. FDM -> Reprap).
-Next major leap was expiration of SLA patents in/around 2014. However since we already had FDM printers this was more just an option for better print quality. (Is SLA slower than FDM? Is there more room to polish the tech for consumer devices?)
-Other than that there is no advance in base technologies. There is incremental development in finding better materials to build the printers from, polishing design, improving quality and so on. Printers will become more reliable, easier to use and convenient.
-Take a look at Ultimaker prototype/original -> Ultimaker 3. The features are much more beefy and offer various kinds of convenience, yet the basic specs are exactly the same as 5 years ago. Price tag is beefier. (No idea about printing speed, would assume only slight improvement but I'm new to the whole thing.)
-New technologies are introduced in the B2B market, that promise an order of magnitude higher printing speed or even two orders of magnitude like Carbon. Expect these to trickle down to the consumer space in 20 (30?) years when the patents expire, unless "the suits" see a business case in low-cost licensing to the consumer market.
-There is little price pressure on the market from new technology. In this respect it is very different in my view from the PC market as we've seen it. Most of the pressure is from dozens of new competitors entering the market, bringing dozens of slightly improved models. This does bring the prices down but I have little idea how aggressive this is. Is there a point to wait until the next quarter in hope of cheaper prices? (I recall 10-15 years ago the price erosion was quite severe on the PC markets, but nowadays this has stopped and there are price cuts/performance increases only at the major/medium technology jumps like new processor architectures)
-Many of the new offerings are simply cheaper or "me too" devices with a lower total quality of the device than the already established brand names

Anything you think is incorrect or incomplete? Or did I get it spot on? Any new patents going to expire in the say, next 5 years or so?

In particular I'm writing this from the new printer's buyers point of view - what kind of price development can we expect and is there anything new behind the corner? Is it likely to be an investment that carries 10 years solid or will it be basically outdated because we see something new and better soon?