The PC-E lenses are the main thing keeping me with Nikon right now, although the lack of LiveView on the a900 would also give me serious pause, because for me it's critical for manual focusing.
I've tried Live View a couple of times on my D300, and concluded that I was getting better results focusing with the viewfinder.
I don't really consider the Hartblei lenses an alternative, because they seem to be vaporware.
So is a "D700x", or whatever Nikon follows up the D3x with that is "affordable". What's worse, I have no way of knowing how much I will be paying for that lower priced alternative.
They're also very expensive, at 9,000 Euros for the 3-lens set (which BTW includes 40, 85, and 120mm - is 40mm really going to be wide enough for you?).
I found the price list:
http://www.hartblei.de/en/pricelist.htm That's $8300 euros, which is about $10,000 (USD). That's a lot, but if the optics are better than the Nikkors and I get independent control of the alignment of the shift and tilt functions, then it wouldn't be unreasonable. My Nikkor 45/2.8 PC-E could just save the day for Nikon with me, it is the best lens at that focal length I have ever seen; but when I shift it the performance at the edges of the image circle recorded by my D300 takes a significant dive (oh my, that's not even all the way to the edge of the lens' image circle); so as I already stated, if the Hartblei can retain better image quality than it is probably worth the premium. As for 40mm versus 24mm at the wide end, I have to say that I am a little underwhelmed by the Nikkor 24/3.4 PC-E, but then I'm comparing it to my Nikkor 14-24/2.8, so that may not be fair.
Overall, I'm noticing a premium on a lot of the Sony lens prices compared to the very good Nikkors they would replace. As I start to add them all up, it makes a $500 or even a $1000 discrepancy between a "D700x" and an A900 look not unreasonable -- especially if the "D700x" has the better image quality that many are expecting from the D3x. I'm not going to be rash about this and will weigh my options; because I have several great Nikkor lenses in hand already my position is more complicated than many who might be pondering their options. I would say right now the A900 looks like a very good option for a lot of people and I wish my situation was less complicated so I could just go out and buy it now.