that's interesting. your firends feelings are identical to mine. i too found the oly as coming a close second in most areas, and certainly leaps and bounds above the canon/nikon in build quality and feel.
the lens availability i thought about as well, but i am rather skeptical about the validity of this (often pushed forward) point: there are plenty of lenses available from pentax (new), and, most importantly, a very comprehensive range. the only missing part right now is perhaps extreme telephoto, but if you can afford that, the price you payed for a k200d double kit is almost irrelevant, to be fair, and one can always get a bigma or something for k-mount anyway.
the primes are not to be underestimated, and the huge range of old and often cheap lenses available is a nice bonus too (imho, photography is all about lenses, that's what makes it fun, every lens has it's own character, focal length is not the only parameter, i feel it's such a great oportunity to be able to pick up old lenses and have fun experiemnting with them, giving them a new life, especially that, back when i was shooting film, i was very limited in the lenses department, and always dreamed of more, now i can admit the problem has become to carry them
; this was the main reason i gave up on the nikon i had, it was doing the job, but it just wasn't friendly and fun in this respect -- yeah, sure: you can get new lenses, and they are "better" and all, so what, let me choose)
i didn't push my friend either, i even insisted he tries an olympus in a shop, when we were there together, i wanted him to have every chance to chose different, but in the face of the plain facts, it was almost impossible to.
i hope he will be happy with the choice, the order is in, and we are (both) inpatiently waiting for delivery. if he ends up hating it, i'm doomed, being a pentax shooter and the obvious culprit :-P
thank you all for your honest thoughts, though nobody played the devils advocate as i hoped, at least i am content that i am not insane, and that the k200d is indeed the deal i see it to be.
i guess the moral to this storry (and yours, offertonhatter) is, as we have said many times here, pentax should find a way to enable more people to handle their cameras, and than their only problem will be to keep up with production