Fuji X-M1

It Was The Best of Times. It Was The Worst of Times. 
– with apologies to Charles Dickens.
The Compact System Camera (mirrorless to some) segment is something of an enigma. In Japan and other parts of Asia cameras in this segment now (August, 2013) comprise some 10% of the camera market, and sales are growing. In the US it's less than 2%, and in Europe things don't seem to be much better. Indeed industry statistics for the first half of 2013 paint a dismal picture with declining sales in all segments, though DSLR sales are declining the least.  Small digicams are almost dead. CSCs are selling slowly, and entry level DSLRs are the area of greatest growth, or rather shall we say slowest decline. It's not a pretty picture.
The great recession of 2008 is still taking its toll. The good times are over (at least for now), real incomes in the US are in decline, and have been for a couple of decades, while half of Europe is in the economic doldrums, or worse. In some cases mu...