Thanks for the impressions, JinDesu! Great report and photos!! I really enjoy reading what folks think about the K-30.
I, too, saw the K-30 for the first time today at Crutchfield in Charlottesville, VA. I didn't get to play with it as long as you did and my thoughts are not as extensive, but I thought I'd share them here.
I would agree that the ergonomics are generally very good. The K-30 felt very good in my hands. I have small hands and was concerned the slightly larger size would cause a problem. Not so. The grip feels great! All the buttons seem to fall in place well, the only exception being the rear e-dial. I think I simply would need to get used to its placement. It also seemed to have a less tactile feel and clicking action than what I am used to with the K-r. Again, I think I would just need to get used to it, but initial observation was that it felt a little weird.
The mode dial was definitely a bit harder to turn than my K-r's and that's a good thing.
Some have commented about the memory card access being difficult. I did not find that at all. Seemed to be just like my K-r in that regard.
I also found the LCD to be very bright and colorful. I thought it would be the same one as my K-r but it seems brighter.
The viewfinder is a wonder, compared to what I'm used to!!
So nice and big and bright and the display info in the viewfinder seems much easier to read.
Autofocus seemed very fast and accurate, both through the viewfinder and LiveView. I only brought home three photos, but all were focused properly in fairly dim lighting. I did not change settings to RAW so can't really comment on high ISO performance as the camera settings were all default. Crutchfield did not have a demo, and I didn't want to go around screwing with the settings too much on what would end up being someone else's camera.
I completely forgot to try out focus peaking! Good grief!
Unfortunately, they don't carry, and apparently will not carry, the 18-135 kit so I will not be buying the camera from them, but I appreciate their letting me play with it, knowing I wasn't going to buy it there. They have great customer service.
My impression of the blue color - it's a beautiful shade of blue, but my personal taste is towards a matte finish. So, at least I am now less sad about not being able to get that blue 18-135 kit!
Now, I'm just waiting on a few more reviews (and a few more dollars) to finally make my decision!