I am from Johannesburg, RSA. Price wise- here at home- it was a no brainer compared to the other digital backs and even compared to eos 1. quality is superb, even on my wide angle lenses. I also have 50mm manual shift, which is great for interiors and architecture.( I personally dont like the wide angle look for interiors) Stopped down to f16 on A3+, it is far better than on 35mm. Grip on camera is nice and with a 80mm lens is great for handheld photography, although I prefer to use a tripod. Camera feels very solid and prism is metal. some plastic parts but on areas that probably dont need the extra protection of metal. Only real problem sofar is the screen which is very contrasty and blue. Definately room for improvement there. On jobs I would rather use a laptop to view the images critically and anyway my clients prefer the laptop to the screen. From a commercial point of view the price for the mamiya system made far more sense to me. I would rather spend the extra bucks that a phase one etc would cost on myself. And frankly, once printed in a magazine etc, who would notice the diffrence? - if there is such a difference!
I was keen to get a 5d but it did not give me the wow factor over my 20d. The first A3+ prints from the zd really impressed me and from then on I was sold. Of course I also had to get a 4gig card because you only get 26 or so images on a 1gig card! It never ends!
If you have specific questions on the ZD I will test it and come back to you. A lot of the early criticism seemed to have come from people who did not even test the camera.
regards. Ivan