Nikon 8700 non-review

In the Spring of 2004 I requested review samples of all of the then recently announced 8 Megapixel digicams from each of the major manufacturers —Sony,Minolta,Olympus,CanonandNikon. Each of them supplied either pre-production or full production cameras (some both), with the exception of Nikon. I also ended up purchasing two of the cameras from local dealers because I liked them enough to want to do long term evaluations.
Nikon's representative kept promising to send me an 8700, but afternumerouse-mail exchanges and phone messages one never arrived. I pushed hard (harder than I normally would have) because I had a deadline for a major print magazine review. I even tried to obtain one from Nikon in another country, but was flatly turned down.
In the end I went to a friendly local dealer and borrowed one of their demos, because I felt it was important that my print review include all available competitors in this market segment.
Because I had published online reviews of the other f...