[ThorSanchez]

This makes me laugh. I took out the Chief Operating Officer of a major networking corporation a few years ago as client on a canoe trip, who had just bought 12 Apples for everyone in his extended family so he didn't have to be their help desk, when they had problems. You keep talking about yourself. Well, most people don't want to be you. I know I don't. Back in the day I used to code, complete with OS hacks do hardwire upgrades, overclocked a couple machines etc. I was even paid to administer a Linux network for a few years. My choice was not made because I couldn't be like you, my choice was that I'd rather leave that kind of stuff to others, and just do the things I enjoy doing. Almost all the software I use came on my machine. I buy and register my product, and after the it's just all productivity, right off the shelf.

You made a different choice, and I understand that, but what does that have to do with anything? It's not an option for most people, and even for those of us who could, most of us in this day and age have rejected your modus operandi. And for most of them it was a very intelligent decision.

That's what you don't get, there are billions of good reasons why people don't want to be you.
Don't get me wrong, my step-son just built himself a gaming computer, I know a few people who enjoy messing around, and he runs government networks and is quite competent with command line processing. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying it's a solution for very few people.

I'm also a journeyman cabinet maker,(went from raw apprentice to production manager in 6 years) but I don't make my own furniture. Knowing how to do something doesn't mean you want to.

And most people don't even have the skill set.

It's not too different from choosing Pentax. Not too many people want to deal with the stuff you have to with Pentax. No in store presence, little in the way of support or repair facilities for North America. Some stubbornly lagging features like tracking autofocus or video. But Pentaxians know what they want, and will happily deal with the other stuff to get it, often at a lower price than the competition.

That's me and computers. An iMac with similar specs to my $2000 computer would cost more than $4000. I am smart enough to configure and maintain a Linux system, and it's really not that hard. I know what I want, and get exactly that. Others will differ, most others. Most don't have the aptitude or patience to do that. But I bought a Pentax system, and I built a custom Linux rig, and I'm happy with both and all I ask is that I can keep doing that. If someone else wants a Canon and an Apple, good for them. That's not me.

Another example. I like cooking, I like pizza, I wanted a better pizza. So I spent 100s of hours and $3000 to build a wood-fired pizza oven in my back yard this summer. Most people would have just settled on whatever carryout they could get. I want what I want, and I like doing things myself. I don't want Steve Jobs' ghost bringing me a box with everything configured to his liking, even if it's guaranteed to be pretty and work all the time.

[normhead]

Ya, let's try and keep it about Pentax. This isn't a dating site.

It's not too different from choosing Pentax.

True , but you can just as easily say it's very different from choosing Pentax. Pentax has features other companies don't , and you can choose Pentax for those features. There's not a thing I do with my computer that would be better with Linux. It's all about the money and what your time is worth. I can raise the extra $2000 for a new Mac on one 6 day trip, where I get to do what I love (I guide canoei trips to places of photographic interest) and get paid for it, and take a lot of pictures along the way. For me it's win win. Do what I love, use the proceeds to fund what I'd like to avoid. The retirement mentality.

Such analogies rarely illustrate an issue. That one certainly muddied it. As I've noted many times, I've compared my Pentax images with the best. Sometimes theirs are better, sometimes mine are better, accentuated by the fact that I see my bad images, but they don't show me theirs, and I'm not convinced any other system I've seen would get better images than I get with my Pentax gear.. That's relevant to my shooting style, what I shoot and what I don't. So, honestly, I'm not giving up anything, and I'm getting IBIS on my older lenses, Pixels shift, and many other Pentax features not available on other brands, not to mention that I much prefer the Pentax version of the tilting back screen. So ya, I'd definitely dispute that you're giving up something shooting Pentax. Giving up something you don't want or need to get things you use constantly is hardly the same as doing without.