Originally Posted by drewdlephone 
.
If RAW retained the original processing applied in-body by the camera, including color modes and sharpness adjustments, then it would be far more useful. But I can keep dreaming.
That's exactly what the Pentax software does. It uses the in-camera jpeg settings and uses them to process the raw file. The difference, of course, is that you can then adjust them to your heart's content, or not. Lots of times, the default settings are perfectly fine, and then I'm done "processing" my raw file. However, sometimes something is a little off and then I adjust it how I see appropriate.
Shooting in raw is basically no different than shooting jpeg, except that you have much more room for adjustments after the shot. However, it's not required. Using a program like Lightroom is exactly the same regardless of the file format. You never even know you're dealing with raw files, except that you retain the full range of adjustment options, instead of the limited range of jpeg adjustments. (Note - I'm not talking about the number of attributes that can be adjusted. The same attributes in raw can be adjusted in jpeg. However, the
range of adjustments is much greater with raw.)