@Hypocorism
I really struggled with the color temperature and blown out highlights in the beginning, too. Please forgive me if I'm preaching to the choir, but learning how to properly bounce the flash off the walls and ceiling made a world of difference for me. Nowadays, I wouldn't even consider using a non-swivel head flash unless it was an off-camera slave. I got pretty good at bouncing light with the K100DS, but the unpleasant colors were still prevalent. Because of this, I was trying to entirely eliminate the flash by switching over to the K-r. The other big factor which greatly helped me over the weekend is that the auto white-balance of the K-r is outstanding. It is producing vastly superior color rendition under bounced flash conditions than my K100DS ever did. Now that I know that the colors and FF are no longer a problem while using the flash, I have a viable (and fully automatic if need be) work-around. It sure has made waiting for the FF solution much more tolerable.
As for the cost, I bought my AF540FGZ used on Craigslist for $250 U.S. It has an ugly scratch on the body, but I could care less as it has functioned perfectly for me. It is more than adequate and I couldn't be happier with the flash. Someday, I'd still like to temporarily get my hands on a Metz just so that I can see for myself the difference between the two.