Here's a picture taken with the SMC Pentax-DA 18-55mm II lens, which hopefully will reassure some of us that this lens is actually pretty good:
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I find this lens very useful for pictures of items for eBay because of its close focusing and also the quick shift. I use AF for these images, but tweak the point of focus manually.

You are all a little confused over the relationship of all these film cameras, so hopefully in the next issue of PU magazine there will be something that will make everything clear!

Yes, assumimg the focal length is the same. Compacts do tend to have slightly wider angle lenses.

The main factor is that compacts have lower quality lenses (usually) and are used to make smaller prints. So the requirement for resolution is lower. This is why I've never found one I was happy with.

Absolutely right, but in the first instance I think we need to establish whether or not this sample is OK. The other factors are built into the design of the lens and help it give the sparkling results that it does.

I wouldn't part with mine either!

There are lots of Pentax lenses and the poorer ones we note as such, but sometimes it depends on what the lens is designed for.

For example, the SMC Pentax-M 120mm f2.8 is soft at wider apertures. That's because it was designed to be so, as a portrait lens where cruel sharpness is not what we always want. I still don't like the lens, but that's just me, it doesn't suit what I want from a short telephoto.

The 12-24mm is a critically sharp lens - I use mine for landscapes and architecture. In the latter case it's ideal because the distortion is very low. But I would be using it to maximise DOF so generally f8 or smaller apertures. It's much sharper even at f4 though than your pictures suggest, so something else is awry.

I would run a test on a brick wall, making sure the camera back is parallel to the wall, at various apertures and with very careful focusing. On a tripod of course. Then see if the lens is sharp at all apertures and how much if any it drops off towards the edges.

This will give you a better idea of what is happening. If the pictures are not crisp then something else is definitely wrong. And when I say crisp I mean more than just in focus and sharp - I mean critically sharp.

The battery power may well have showed full, but if the battery remained cold and you then used it you would find it running low much sooner than usual.

Presumably, and of course focus point is less critical at longer distances. Even so, many cameras had Infinity Lock settings, or Landscape settings, which amounted to the same thing.

Infra-red autofocus systems have already been used in many compact film cameras.

These are "active" AF systems as opposed to the "passive" ones we use these days.

Smaller cards are a better idea, for the reason that if one does become corrupted you will lose fewer images.

You can use virtually all Pentax lenses. Those with an "A" on the aperture ring will be more convenient. Search the forum for lots of threads on the subject.

It's a fine lens. I had one of these and apart from being a very strange huge chunk of plastic it produces very good results.

It's a similar optical construction to the SMC Pentax-M 100mm f4 Macro.