Writing the code is less than 20% of a project's time. The rest is debugging the stuff, and getting it to conform to the original requirements. WindowsME is a bad example to compare against, because like a lot of MS software, it's written and released with as little testing as the customers will tolerate.Mark, I think this is crap. Pentax has been screwing with DLSRs for 4 years. That's enough time to hatch, say, WindowsME. And cameras ain't as hard as operating sytems. Pentax may need to hire some more SW engineers. Mebbe they can find some in Pakinstan.
If anyone made a camera (or car, or cell phone, or TV) with as high level of bugs in it as a typical windows release, they wouldn't be in business to make a follow-up model...
Adding stop-down metering to the *ist-D would have required re-validation of the camera firmware, just as manufacturing was about to ramp up. Not a clever move, given the small number of customers who would even notice.
I wouldn't rule out this feature turning up in a future firmware upgrade, though, once the development team have some time to play with.
-- Kristian
