No Vern, ...maybe a little faster than they projected sales would be.
Ruger is capable of turning out guns in astonishing numbers, when they have the orders for them. I've watched them do it in person, even before they further streamlined their manufacturing.
Sales for quality .22 revolvers are a drop in the bucket, when compared to most other handguns, and that was true in the past as well. Back when I worked in a gun store, S&W and Colt .22 revolvers would languish on the shelves for months, at heavily discounted prices. (And prices that bring a tear to my eye when I think about them today). After selling a Model 17 or a Diamondback .22 that had stayed on the shelf for too long, we would often wait some time before ordering another. I'd say we probably sold the centerfire versions of the same models at a rate of 20 to 1, or higher. I'd be surprised if that isn't true today as well. The manufacturers responded to that with limited production of the slower models. That caused the guns to sometimes be in short supply, giving the illusion of them being in great demand.
While $600+ doesn't sound unreasonable to us who are gun folk, the average gun buyer can't begin to comprehend why a .22 should sell for anything close to a centerfire handgun price, much less for more. After all, the ammo is so much cheaper! Try asking one of your non-gun aficionado friends how much he thinks a .357 revolver sells for, and how much he thinks a .22 revolver sells for. I think you'll get my point. The average shooter is much more comfortable buying something like a Ruger .22 auto, for half the price of the SP101 in .22.
As far as why your local store doesn't have any particular new model gun, you might be surprised to find out that sometimes the reason is, they didn't order any when they were announced. Gun shops, especially smaller shops, are notoriously reticent about ordering guns they aren't sure will turn fast. I have several good friends in the distribution business, and they constantly complain about shops not ordering new models of guns. The shops will tell them, "we're going to wait to see what the demand is". Hence, distributors will order light on new models, not being sure they will turn them fast enough. BTW, that's the reason gun companies, (including Ruger in the past), often promote the hell out of guns before they actually start making them. To try and buildup a demand, so the distributors and dealers would actually order them. No company wants to sit on inventory.
Obviously, everything I've said in this long winded post, is not accounting for the current gun buying frenzy. That will play into many model's availability, along with company's decisions about which models to concentrate on building. In this environment especially, quality .22 revolvers are not going to be at the top of that list.
