James,
I don't own a MF format back, but I was one of the first people in the US to get an M8; that M8 is now back in Germany (god willing) to be fixed. If I get lucky, it will be fixed and shipped back before the German Christmas holiday, which, as I understand it, extends from Dec. 23 to Jan. 2. If I get unlucky, I lose the camera for a additional ten days, or five-six weeks total.
The M8 had two major problems. First, it was too sensitive to IR, and therefore dark neutral colors that reflected a lot of IR, usually synthetic fabrics or fabrics with a waterproof coating, became visibly magenta. REALLY magenta. The other fault produced severe banding when over-exposed lights were present in a frame shot in otherwise dark conditions, and a weird green mirror image. In other words, you really can't count on doing low-light street shooting, which is one of the M's reasons for being.
One interesting thing: the **very first person** to take delivery of a commercial M8 (as far as we know) discovered the banding fault **on his first night of shooting.** I think I may have been the first to notice the green mirror images, on the first day that M8s were widely delivered in the US. On the second or third day of shooting, after the first deliveries, somebody shot a concert in which all the players were wearing tuxes, and all the tuxes were...magenta. Nasty.
There was a web-wide Leica freak-out, and what happened then was as interesting as the faults. I honestly believe that Leica simply didn't know what to do. They tried to do the best they could, and IMHO have come up with the most practical solution, but not without a lot of trashing around. These high-tech camera companies just are not good at consumer relations. Nikon is not good, Hasselblad has recently pissed off people by closing the H3 system, Leaf has got this centerfold problem or whatever you call it. To me, the eventual technical responses seem appropriate -- but the communications problem is awful. I just wonder if there is not some cultural thing going on here too; do the European shooters complain as much as Americans? Or is it just us?
JC