Welcome to the forum and good luck with learning, it took me 2 months before I had something good out of the K10D

Yes that was my understanding as well and since the sensor is the same as the K10D you can say that the dynamic range is the same as well so you can archive the same effects with both RAWs in post processing.
With JPG you have the problem you lose details and that the dynamic range isn't that great, that's why I said it's a JPG only fetuare.

At leat this my understanding behind but once again prove me wrong and I'll be happier men.

Clarky, at least we both are saying the same so that's good

What kind of EV do you mean Clarky the flash or the camera.
If it's about the EV on the camera in manual mode I'm quite curious how that should work.
I've the K10D and the K200D is in between that and the K20D with features so if the K10D can do it then also probable the K200D.

What kind of cleaning do you intent?
For all in all solution there isn't something swaps can't clean, they remove dust, smudges and swipe away bigger objects.
If it's only dust the butterfly will do you good, it works simple and fast.

P-TTL work in every mode but Bulb I believe but it might even work in that.
The newer pentax model cameras don't have TTL anymore so P-TTL is the only option. You can't set the camera to any flash mode, they are all P-TTL with the build in flash for example, you can change the metering mode on your flashgun, the camera simply follows.

BTW you can see the pre-flash if you put the flash on trailing curtain and set the camera to a long exposure. You see a flash at the begining, that's the pre-flash and one at the end of the exposure.

Because it's manual so you need to set the exposure yourself or wasn't that the problem?

I'm not sure 100% sure if flash exposure compensation work when the camera is in manual but I believe so though, need to try that out.

Okay thank you for making that clear Mongoose, I really though it regulated the flash output with "power" since the flash doesn't get that hot when using less power but in a way it makes sense though.
Learning something new everyday here

It still takes the same amount of time no matter if the AF is under that button or not.

I most of the time have it half press when focusing the shot so that's enough time for the SR to work correctly, simply something you need to learn yourself.

He could buy Tokina though so that he wouldn't miss Pentax so much, you could try out the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 for us and tell us if we are missing something or not

So the K20D and K200D really do make 3 or more photos and merge them into one.
I always though it only worked with JPG were it recovers the highlights and the darks, atleast that was my understanding but I'm glad to be proven wrong on this.

There have been many discusions about this one and it doesn't seem likely that pentax will go FF.

The biggest problem I see that some DA lenses don't work FF but also Pentax needs to support 3 lens lines then, APS-C, FF and MF. I don't see pentax/hoya doing that to be honest and I rather have them focused on APS-C then on FF for getting better lenses and as it can also cheaper.

I see way that many wants a FF but technology is moving quite fast with these image-sensors so maybe over 4 years we can have the FF quality in APS-C and in a smaller body.
The lenses of APS-C are also quite a bit lighter and cheaper so, please Pentax don't go FF.