Oh for sure, I'd much rather have the even cheaper F4 (or an F8, or splurge a few hundred more for the MixPre10T) than have an R-88!
But I'm sure for some small niche of people they'd prefer the R-88, and this would be an amazing deal for them.
For instance if they really really want the 8x full size XLR outputs, or the digital I/O.