The R-200 has an interesting history. It was originally going to be a dual-suspended 'bent (because comfort is the one and only selling point for bents, and in the upright world, the way to be comfy is with suspension, right?) The original target price was $1600. You can stand back and look at the bike, and kind of know what was going through their corporate-think minds as they designed it by committee. But as the production date neared, it became apparent that they'd have to cost-reduce it to keep it under the price point. So the front suspension disappeared.
The resulting bike wasn't bad, but it had a few faults. The seat was too high and despite 40 gears, it wasn't all that fast. And there were shifting problems. First-year sales were better than expected. Early shifting issues were worked out ( believe it was an improperly-specced cassette or wrong grease in the mid-drive unit - something like that...) and the second year sold well, too. But when the original proponent within Trek died unexpectedly, Trek dropped it. Like, the next day! "Super Dave" of Valley Bikes (Indianapolis area) bought out Trek's entire remaining inventory as surplus, for a song, and sold them as-is, still in their shipping cases, for $600 each. They were gone in a matter of a few weeks. I was on Dave's mailing list at the time, and he must've had FedEx trucks lined up at his loading dock, because those babies flew out the door!
As I understood it, Trek's dealership agreement required every Trek dealer in the country to stock at least one R-200, and every one of them immediately became guaranteed money-losers for the shops. Most dealers didn't want to stock a recumbent in the first place, and didn't know how to sell recumbents (and still don't.) That left the dealers all mad at Trek, and left Trek with egg on its corporate face.
Unfortunately, the message that Trek came away with was, "Don't do Recumbents," when the message should have been "give your customer base what they want, AND don't abuse your dealers."