Excellent Rob, I'm slightly less confused...
As I read through your reply I'd decided on either the Olympus or choosing one of the Sonys, but then got to your comments on HDR. And since impressing wimmin is always good, looking back through the choices I can only find HDR with the Sony HDR-AS50...
Given that the boat is now out of the water until March, should I wait until the likes of Olympus and Ricoh launch an HDR model (and hopefully benefit from post Christmas pricing?).