Convincing numbers, Les.
On the D500, off topic though, the comparison with a similarly-priced Z6II is not the right one, I think. When the D500 was released, it was 20.9MP while the norm on FX was 24MP. It is the combination of an action camera with a higher pixel density than FX that made it for me and many other nature photographers. A true D500 equivalent today would be a 40MP DX camera with Z8 capabilities, and personally, I would preorder it, even at Z8 pricing. That said, I agree the numbers are unfortunately not high enough for Nikon for prioritize it against other bodies with a much larger sales potential.

ALT title: "Baloon Dispenser"

Or perhaps a leaking shower dripping balloons 

I am certainly not disagreeing that there are people who have perfectly good reasons to want an FTZ with AF-D support. All I am objecting to is the idea that Nikon's failure to provide one is (a) commercial folly, and/or (b) a ploy to force people to buy Z mount lenses they wouldn't need if there was an FTZ with AF-D support.

If you look at Roland Vink's camera database, in the US the D200 sold 233K in less than two years (all of these numbers are US only because I am not going to add up sales for all regions), the D300 sold 196K over two years, the D300S sold 175K over six years and the D500 sold 68K from 2016 to now. The D600/610 sold 270K, roughly twice D300s/D500 sales over about the same period, despite being more expensive and less capable. So, yes, the D500 sold relatively well, but the comparison with low-end FX, and the slope of the trend line for high-end DX are what is significant when considering how many of the people asking for a Z mount D500 would actually buy one in preference to a similarly-priced Z6III. Similar things happen all the time: everyone says Nikon must make DX wide primes, but when it comes to putting down the money, they buy zooms. Even someone as thoughtful as Thom Hogan does it: when he is talking about what Nikon needs to make, DX primes are on the list, but when he is suggesting appropriate lens kits, it is zooms. I don't think you can blame Nikon for paying more attention to what people actually buy than what they say they would like to be able to buy.

Nikon has sold 800K FTZ/FTZII, and about that many Z cameras every year, so the great majority of Z camera buyers do not buy a (Nikon) FTZ - ie, they use only Z lenses. The rate of FTZ sales is falling: in the three years from 2018, 445K FTZ were sold = 148K a year, while since the FTZII was introduced in late 2021 sales have been 89K a year. Some of that may be because if you bought an FTZ with the Z6 you don't buy another one with the Z6II or III, but it may also be because as more Z lenses appear and their overall superiority is generally accepted first -time camera buyers see less need for adapted lenses. I am only guessing, but maybe, when it was thinking about an AF-D capable FTZ, Nikon noticed which way the trend line for FTZ sales is pointing.   

Who would buy an FTZ with AF-D support? Anyone with an AF-D lens? No. Only people with special AF-D lenses are candidates - no one is going to fork out the cost of a Z 50/1.8 to use a 50/1.8D on a Z camera. The 70-180 macro sold 18K, so people wanting to use that on a Z camera are not a significant market. The 105/2 DC and the 135/2 DC both sold 33K, which is not a lot, and another often mentioned lens, the 85/1.4 AF-D, sold 103K, and there may be other candidate special lenses. Taking all the special AF-D lenses together there might be a market approaching 200K total sales for an AF-D capable FTZ. But what is the evidence that many owners of those lenses are deeply attached to them? In particular, the AF-S 85/1.4 sold 120K, and those people had no reason relating to camera compatibility to prefer it to the 85/1.4 AF-D (it seems unlikely many were D3xxx users). The Z 85/1.8 has sold 106K, and the Z 85/1.2 and the 135/1.8 have both sold 19K, and the 85/1.4 AF-S owners weren't coerced into buying Z mount lenses, so a lot of the high-end portrait crowd seem to be OK with not using the 85/1.4 AF-D.

AF-D sales being less than half of AF-S plus Z sales is the pattern across focal lengths - eg, the 50/1.4 AF-D sold 545K, the 50/1.4 AF-S sold 725K and the Z 50/1.8 has sold 210K.  Ai and Ai-S sales of 50/1.4 were 1.7M (!), so the overall proportion of 50/1.4 lenses sold able to use the FTZ/FTZII is 80%. If Nikon wanted to force people to buy Z mount lenses they didn't need why would they confine the coercion to the smallest element of the potential market?

Not too shabby at all. Was that just regular noise reduction?

   I went to check:
In camera, high iso noise reduction "off"
                 raw compression "high efficiency" not sure if this has influence on the image's noise
                 shot in monochrome
                 everything else "off" by default

On NX Studio, contrast +1
                      straighten +6.0  (this was more tilted than usual  )
                      noise reduction "original value" so...off
                      lens correction "lateral aberration" was selected, I don't remember doing it...

      That's it. Pretty much straight out of camera. The camera has been updated to the latest firmware and the image was developed in NX Studio.