[mdbrown]

There is something that we should not lose sight of here. The most serious problem with the K-5 is not that 'a few bad ones slipped through qc'. The most serious issue is that there is a design flaw in the K-5's autofocus system.

The camera was designed to accurately autofocus down to EV-1; and, as most of us now know, it doesn't come close to this.

This is not an 'advertising claim' in the sense that 'your photos will just be better with Pentax'. (Nor is it like 'we think our auto white-balance provides nice color'.) It is a precise technical specification--one that Pentax, I'm sure, thought they had met. And, while the folks at Pentax are now scrambling to come up with a firmware fix, it is not at all clear that they'll be able to do so.

Although many K-5 users don't seem concerned about this shortcoming, I think it would be wrong for them (or any of us) simply to say "Hey Pentax, you produced a very nice camera (for the most part), so we won't worry about the fact that it can't live up to its technical specs."

I think we should all hold Pentax's feet to the fire on this one.

Don't know anything about that. For me, how worked up I get would depend on how far short it falls from spec and how much that would effect usability of the camera. Yes it should meet or exceed spec but sometimes that doesn't happen. Cars often cannot meet their rated mpg. Your blu-ray player should have neutral output... many don't (they shift colors up or down). I have witnessed premium waterproof watches fail while washing the dishes. While it's reasonable to expect a product to meet it's published specs it's also not unusual to find that's not always the case.