From CR Kennedy, the Pentax agents in Oz. link
Before the u/g the firmware was 1.03

I've done a bit of playing finding that it would only fire 4 shots at High Speed continuous using either jpg or pef files which also seemed odd so I reset to defaults. Voila! This fixed both problems.
I've now reset the K-7 to my preferred settings & it works fine so it still seems to me that the firmware u/g had something to do with the problem, suddenly rearing it's head as it did. I rang the Oz Pentax distributor & they said the firmware u/g couldn't cause the problem. If it wasn't the firmware u/g I can't think what could have been the culprit.
The good news is it's all OK now.

Thanks. I always have shadow & highlight correction turned on.

I upgraded my K-7 to firmware 1.1 yesterday & now it takes about 4 seconds for the card access lamp (nr. the menu button) to light up. After that the processing time seems normal.
I tried another formatted SD card but the result was the same. The camera appears to be working normally apart from that.
Has anyone had a similar experience or have I done something wrong?

In the end I bought a second hand FA31 on ebay & I'm loving it. Not as sharp wide open as I had hoped (I don't want much!) but it's a beautiful lens to use. Colour rendition seems excellent, nice bokeh, just a delight in the hand & in the end product.

You're correct but talking about twice as fast (for example) is confusing. One stop faster is more sensible because that is what we use on our cameras & what we think in.

"With a maximum ISO of 25600 (4 times that of the K-7"
That is 2 stops faster than the K-7 maximum of 6400. It's not 4 times faster.

It's less of a sliver than my FA 50mm f1.4 or my Sigma 105mm f2.8 EX macro.

I wonder when these "authorities" are going to wake up to the fact that virtually everyone carries a camera - in their mobile phone. I see them clicking away with impunity where it is supposed to be illegal but if I get my dSLR out I'm jumped on. It's happened. Hmmmmmm.......must learn to put my camera to my ear when not taking photos...............

I've got 12-24 & 10-20 Sigmas. My reservation about the 12-24 is it's bulbous front element (flare problems & you can't put a screw on UV filter on it) but it doesn't have the distortion of the 10-20. That said I love the 10-20 which is always part of my travel kit.