I suppose that was their intent, but as you pointed out, they failed to market them properly. The R&D and production costs on those machines must have been enormous, and to fail to promote them at all should have been a criminal act. I have no doubt that the marketing scheme that you outlined would work and even make a profit, but I fear that the bean counters at Kodak would not see it that way.
Kodachrome will always have a quality advantage over the chromogenic films out there for the reasons that you explained, and it is a real shame to see it fall by the wayside due to mass market preferences. My favorite film of all time was Kodachrome II; virtually grainless and amazingly sharp, with fantastic color fidelity. I never found a K-14 film that could compare to it, even though they are excellent as well.
Sorry for the delay in my response here, my FR pager failed to alert me to your replies. Must be a problem with the new software, and I'm not even sure if the pager works with general interest topics.
I got a good taste of how modern management strategy works when I did consulting for a government agency. I watched a unit of government be brought to its knees by a yuppie hustler on his way up. The plan is simple: Cut every corner possible, even to the point that secretaries have to beg for typewriter ribbons, regardless of the long term cost to the enterprise, so long as you can make it look good on paper in the short term.
Keep riding the horse hard until right before it's ready to drop dead soaking wet in place, then jump off, "grab a new horse" (i.e., take the documentation of your fantastic paper "success story" and use it to market yourself to another enterprise), and let the survivors deal with the dead horse and all the misery that comes due thanks to your mismanagement, while you bask in your "success" in the new venue. Repeat as necessary until you reach retirement age.