other than the pricing strategies, Cteins work is not all that "spectacular" I always judge an image with the question "would I hang it on my wall" followed by, if yes "where" What I have seen so far from Cteins images I wouldn't of even gotten past the first question. Might know a lot about technicalities, but his images I like not...

As much as I try I don't really see any problem anywhere, only perhaps the fact that on slow news days people should refrain form posting and or reporting matters like this. It is of no importance whatsoever to anyone. And maybe I'm wrong and that the issue is really very important in which case I would like to find out why exactly?

"If you're thinking about trying to write a rebuttal to the facts, don't bother. You will be wrong. This is my field of expertise! If you're a surgeon, I wouldn't argue the fine points of your surgical specialty with you. I know what I'm talking about" Yes absolutely, wouldn't dare rebut such a well known professional as yourself. As for your post, it must have been very interesting to people who might have understood the meaning of it... count me out. I'm just a lowly Ph.D. Mathematician, and what do they know hey :-)

Absolutely right, for a combination of good images and speed you need a Rolleiflex or Hasselblad at least ....... fast and speedy contraptions, made for speed and optimal imagry....

There arne't any "average" cameras built anymore. The differences are marginal and often out of "eye range" specked. It all comes down to personal preference with respect to color rendition, handling and such. High ISO cameras like the Nikon 5000 can indeed shoot at 3200, but the images might be to muddy for some, but ok for others, all a matter of personal preference and "fanboyisms" As for ever smaller getting viewfinders I see this as a normal progression of technology, us older photogs might not like it, but my son and daughter for instance have grown up looking at the back of digital cameras and therefore not knowing/valueing the viewfinder of any sort at all.... in a couple of years cameras, even high quality ones will get smaller still, and will not have prosms or viewfinders very much in the tradition of the EP-1. Quality lenses .... to expensive especially when one can integrate software making the most of the images in question (and doing a good job at it), The LX-3, G1 and EP-1 are all extremely succesfull with this method. And then whom needs, and I mean need instead of want, high quality lenses since only 3% of all taken images are printed larger than the standard sizes. What the manufacturers are doing with this knowledge, for they see it all probably better than we ever will, is add more and more "useless" features in order to be able to introduce "new-models" And then again whom needs high quality and expensive when only having the creativity to make images of dogs in the back yard and high resolving ducks in the water? But nothing can be as boring, even the middle part of DP-review reviews than seeing thousand and thousands of "Macro-flowers" not to speak of Bokeh shots from every possible angle and view point just because someone owns a lens that can do it. Theres actually not much new happening despite the huge availibility of all the new-, and highly specked cams. But thats all a matter of taste isn't it. I still enjoy browsing through the GRD flickr images, seems to be one of the very few creatively expanding groups of photogrpahers. And perhaps we should seperate the collectors from the actual photogrpahers, but there wouldn't be very many photogrpahers left would there?