I can appreciate your comments Nathan, especially as you are happy with yours, but you cant deny that a £400+ lens shouldn't need to be sent back, it just shouldn't be faulty in the first place at least not to the degree that it is been reported.
As for the "rumours" most of these complaints have come from a Pentax Forum and dissatisfied Pentaxians themselves, not over zealous canikons who are trying to degrade the Pentax brand.

I dont know why you put the "lol" on the end, I think thats a serious consideration for any bit of kit thats sent out via mail order, the time it would take to do a quick test before dispatch could save a lot of time and money in having to send out replacements and refunding postage costs, mind you I hear SRS are doing so well they can afford to send Pentax lenses instead of Sigma

I know I am seriously reconsidering my decision to upgrade my glass, at least I know what I currently have works.

I also wonder if this problem with the 16-50 is why Pentax are not offering cashback on this lens, ie they dont have enough good stock to cope with the demand they'd get.

If I'm going to pay £400+ for a lens I want it perfect and dont want to be sending it back for replacement or adjustment.

Or any body will look good behind a Limited

Superb shot, I think its cropped a bit too tight but its still excelent.

Your obviously much better at photography than this guy is at colour co-ordination

You are kidding John, right?
Have you followed that link to Stephens Flickr album? there's some excelent stuff in there, I nearly recinded my offer for him to visit my camera club, he'd be winning all the trophies

Nice shot Stephen.

I see your in Leeds, if you get bored on wednesday evenings I'd like to invite you to LCPS; http://www.leedsphoto.net/

Drop me a PM if your interested.

No, My Pentax 80-320

PS; Tyr, have you checked you PMs lately :

After posting the image I had of the Little Egret to give Belinda some inspiration, and having so many positive replies I decided to put it into my Camera Clubs annual Exhibition/competition, it must be better than I thought as I got 1st place

LINK:

http://www.leedsphoto.net/Pages/AnnEx2008Colour.htm

I think you can be arrested for lurking in the Hedge

Welcome to the forum Ian, I like your Avatar

Retailers Like Jessops promote what they think the customer wants, The customers think they want Canon or Nikon, you have to realise that an awful lot of people cant think and make decisions for themselves, so they follow he market leaders, BAA! BAA! BAA! I suppose you could call Pentax users the black sheep of the family

Obviously there are many Canon and Nikon users who have made their own decision to go for their chosen brand based on what they want from it and not from subliminal advertising and brainwashing

PS quick edit, I'm with Hefty, I'd probably go back to Olympus, then I could drool over Zuiko lenses instead of Pentax.