  We study the impact of the "intrinsic" hadron transverse momentum on the
pre-asymptotic behavior of the diffractive electroproduction of longitudinally
polarized $ \rho$-meson. Surprisingly, we find the onset of the asymptotic
regime in this problem to be rather low, Q^2 ~ 10 GeV^2 where power corrections
due to the transverse momentum do not exceed 20 % in the amplitude. This
drastically contrasts with exclusive amplitudes where the asymptotics starts at
much higher Q^2 = 50 - 100 GeV^2. The sources of such unexpected behavior are
traced back to some general (the quark-hadron duality) as well as more silent
(properties of higher dimensional vacuum condensates) features of QCD.
