Instead of complaining on and on in the forums (which I'm good at ;-), I figured it may be better to send my comments directly to Ricoh Japan. Here's a copy of the email I just sent them (to dc-support AT nts.ricoh.co.jp):

> ================================================
Dear Support,

Please forward my email to the GX100 Product Management team.

I'm generally a very happy user of a Ricoh Caplio GX8 camera. I considered upgrading to the excellent GX100, but a few limitations in this camera made me give up this idea and wait for the next model:

1. Slow RAW writing times. 5 seconds is too long when shooting people and other dynamic subjects. A RAW buffer (as in the GR Digital II) would solve the problem.
2. Detachable lens cap. My GX8 has a built-in lens cap, as do the GR Digital and GR Digital II. This is a lot more convenient than a detachable cap.
3. Non-constant aperture when the zoom is changed (a problem that also exists in the GX8). I'd like to be able to set an aperture (e.g. f/5.6) and make sure it stays set even if I change the zoom. This is especially important when using non-TTL external flash units. It also lessens the chance of too-small an aperture being used (which in turn reduces the image quality of images due to diffraction, and needlessly hurts Ricoh's reputation).

If the GX100-replacement includes better RAW writing times (e.g. no longer than 2 seconds), a detachable lens cap and constant apertures then I will surely upgrade as soon as the camera is released.

In addition, I'm a bit worried about a couple of trends that I see in the GR Digital II and R8, and I hope they don't continue in the GX100-replacement:

1. In-camera Noise-Reduction that is too strong (when shooting JPEG). The GX100 and GX8 don't suffer from this problem. More details here [1] and in the discussions linked from this post.

2. Removal of the external phase-detection AF sensors, resulting in significantly slower AF [2] in newer Ricoh models compared to previous ones. Note that the linked post contains analysis of the problem, and a few technical suggestions on how it may be possible to implement fast AF without these sensors.

Thanks in advance for your co-operation and help,

[my signature]
> ================================================

[1]
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1013&message=27188974
[2]
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1013&message=27181467

I really hope that Ricoh is willing to listen to user feedback and that it's not too late in the design stages of the new model.

Prog.