People seem to get so much pleasure out of it when I'm wrong.
If that's the case then I must give a lot of pleasure, because I'm frequently wrong. Who isn't sometimes?
If I was wrong all the time my opinions as a critique wouldn't be worth much. But, fortunately for me, I'm right more often that I'm wrong, so as long as my battting average remains above 500 I'll keep doing what I do.
As for 4/3rds. Yup, looks like it'll survive. What's happened is we've come to a point where about 8MP is sufficient for most amateur needs, and Olympus et al have been able to get decent image quality from small sensors with this high pixel density.
The problem that Olympus had initially, in my opinion, is that they aimed the E1 at the pro market. A few pros adapted it early on, but as the competition produced cameras with larger and higher quality sensors Olympus had problems with their marketing approach. Since they've segued over to the consumer side they've done much better.
Pros need files, much of the time, which are larger than 4/3rd cameras can provide, even at 8MP. The big stock agencies demand minimum 11MP files, and some like Getty 16MP minimum. Ad agencies need to be able to handle double page spreads and still allow for cropping. Most find that anything less than about 11-12MP starts to hurts when this is done.
This says nothing negative about 4/3rd cameras other than the fact that they aren't suiatable for some pro applications because they will always suffer from a smaller sensor. Anything that improves image quality on a 2X sensor will be even better on a 1.3X or 1.5X or 1.6X, (let alone full frame). In the hands of amatuers, and even some pros like wedding and event photographers they do a fine job though.
My concern is that the weight and size savings that were promised have failed to materialize. One look at the new Panasonic L1 makes that clear. And Olympus' lenses, though very high quality, are also high priced, which is problematic for the amateur market that they are now going after. The new Leica 4/3rd lenses aren't going to be inexpensive either.
So in the end 4/3rds isn't going away, and neither will 1.5x and .6X APS C sized sensors, nor will full frame. There's room for all.
So, yes I was wrong.
Feel better?
Michael