surely the answer is simply not to press the green button in Av mode?

AA batteries is a marmite issue. Personally I've always seen the Li-Ion block batteries as a necessary evil for the high power requirements of top end cameras.

AAs give you more options on your power source and I would rate the fact that a camera uses them as a massive plus.

My Dad uses his 12-24 for rectified photography. His rectification software has a distortion correction system which he has to turn off when using the 12-24.

The 12-24 produces so little distortion at any focal length that it confuses the system and the correction actually ends up introducing distortion which was not there in the original shot.

The 16-45 is fantastic, it lives on my K10D and I have no hesitation in using it for any purpose served by its zoom range. The Zeiss is a hair sharper perhaps, but only if you're talking about actually using F4 and faster (obviously there is no "faster" on the 16-45), and is more fiddly to use being M42.

Come to think of it I must make a consious effort to take the Zeiss out and make some pictures, it hasn't been used in a while!

for those with confused tastes like myself who like Rock and Classical music, try Jon Lord's Concierto for Group and Orchestra. The best of both worlds!!

Actually I like Jon Lord's music in general.

since Pentax now have video capable SLRs, this seems sensible to me

currently of course the FA50 1.4 is not under £300.

The best lens in my bag which I purchased for under £300 is my Tamron SP 90mm Macro (£50), followed by my Zeiss Jena 35mm F2.4 (£20) and my Pentax FA 50 1.4 (£150 at time of purchase)

I don't understand why such a fuss is made over AF speed by so many people.

For fast moving subjects, fast AF is going to be a big plus. In everyday use by most of us, it makes no difference whatsoever beyond bragging rights.

The SFX already focussed faster than I can manually, more than that is a bonus in my humble opinion.

Now focus accuracy, that I can see why people would get worked up about, but it never seems to get mentioned.

I have no idea who is best at focus accuracy, but it seems to me that, all things being equal, any AF system design should be a trade off between speed and accuracy.

4 more who find regular places in my playlist.

Abney park are very interesting, I'd never heard of them before but I'm rather enjoying them.

exactly what I was going to suggest, I find many things look more interesting from a lower vantage point.