With respect;
Heljan announced their intensions before Hornby announced their range, and did so not knowing the extent of the Hornby range. Hornby made their announcement knowing Heljan's intensions, whether those models duplicating Heljan's potential development were already in their plans is not something we can know.
Just because it hasn't yet got a price point doesn't mean you can't make reasonable assumptions from the 50 and the 66. Heljan were aiming at a £199 price point, both of those are well below that (the 66 very much so). Heljan's CAD of their 31 points to taking their 00 approach in this smaller scale, Hornby have gone slighly more "Railroady" (and probably rightly so).
At announcement, we had no clear indication of the timescale of Hornby's phases and when this 31 would actually appear. Heljan knew their own timescale.
Is "day one" duplication of models a good thing for a new scale trying to establish itself?
Apart from commercial considerations obviously...