Panasonic Lumix DMC L1 Review

Predisposition
I should start this review by saying that I was predisposed to liking the L1. Notwithstanding their flaws, I was partial to both the earlier PanasonicLC1andLX-1models. Each had character, and a sense that they had to some extent been designed by and for photographers, unlike so many cameras these days, which appear to be more akin toIPodswith lenses attached rather than photographic instruments.
There also is the fact that I was once a sales and marketing executive for Panasonic (decades ago), and have a certain affinity for the company and its products, if not an altogether warm and fuzzy feeling for what is one of the world's largest electronics corporations.
But that aside (and stated here for the sake of full disclosure more than anything else), what initially enamored me of the L1 was the fact that I began a career in and passion for photography before 1999. What I mean by that is that my sense of the form and functional disposition of a camera was learned prior t...