[jgredline]

I've never tried the settings you're describing, but the sharpness thing is an interesting theory.

I currently shoot at 3 stars, with +2 sharpness/saturation. The setup is more that adequate for my purposes, as I'm not a big believer in RAW.

I agree. No RAW for me. I have in the past month or so switched to 4 stars jpeg and at first did not notice a difference. Not until I tried to fix a few images that where under exposed or over exposed. I was able to bring them back. I also noticed that over or under exposer is much more forgiving.