The only "must-have" for me is an eye-level viewfinder, so I eliminated all the other contenders.
Every camera I played with seemed to have at least one short-coming.
So, as much as I want to jump into a new system, I could not pull the trigger.
Do they all have that "annoying viewfinder lag", or noisy shutter, or slow autofocus, or small buffer, or lack of simple controls, or non-traditional menus?
I keep going back to my Nikon DSLR's and my Leica M film systems, which I use for every imaginable shooting situation.
I also sympathize as I was in the same situation for a very long time. My previous forays into digital compacts (including systems) was very negative. Mostly I hated ones without viewfinders and found shutterlag unbearable.
Add to this that while I can afford a system, I really don't want to spend substantial money on a system that I'd end up hating. And most of them are still in price ranges (for a workable minimum kit) well above what I was willing to risk.
Anyway, two things recently pushed me to take the plunge: the size penalty of full-frame DSLRs was just getting too painful in context of lifestyle recently - meaning I just wasn't having fun taking Nikon kit except for things where it is needed - and finding one that was below my (vague internal) cost barrier.
I'd been aware for a while that the OM-D series had advanced to the point where I could probably live with it - particularly response time, it 'feels like a camera.' But prices (to the extent that I was following) also seemed high in case I hated it (I'd hated an early iteration of M4/3).
So what changed was that the EM-10 was introduced at an attractive price point, and with intro of EM-5mII, the original also fell in price. I settled on an EM-10 with kit lens for a bit over US$400. At that price point, losses if I get rid of it are okay.
Overall I'm very happy with it: pictures are good, it handles like a camera, and - key factor - small enough for me that it is a great take-with-me-whenever-I-want camera. It's fun and I take more pictures (whereas I just couldn't with Nikon fullframe kit).
Negatives of note are that the EVF - while acceptable - is far behind an optical viewfinder. I can live with the menus which others hate, although I'm not a fan. It's quiet enough for my purposes.
So my insights:
-EVFs do indeed lag in terms of where the rest of the technology is - but still manageable.
-You're quite right that they all have deficiencies or shortcomings. You can either wait until it gets 'good enough' or compromise - I waited for years but current OM-D is there for me.
-What's the main goal? For me it was size (at acceptable performance on other parameters).
-Price matters. I probably wouldn't have taken the plunge before a basic kit got below $500. The threshold is obviously personal and subjective. Now that I have it I admit I probably would have found OM-D line acceptable at, say, $700-$800, but I didn't know that then. ))
-I don't feel fully committed to m4/3 but confident enough that I'll get plenty of use out of the EM-10 to make it worthwhile. I will want a small, good fixed lens though.
-I am personally not at all ready to move fulltime to mirrorless and get rid of other kit. For me, I think that will take a few generations more - not in terms of image quality but other factors that have already been covered here. THis is subjective of course. BUT: I'm fine with that. My Fullframe kit is for other stuff, m4/3 for general and fun. But I must admit that the range of things for which the FF kit is essential - or trade-off for size not acceptable - is getting quite small. Realistically having both kits is not necessary (but that would hold for much of my herd of cameras, too).
-Side note on EM-5 vs EM-10: I'm glad I have the EM-10 as I find the wifi and a few other features useful - but probably would have been fine with the EM-5 as well. I don't think the difference between them is so enormous, although obviously some will want some features more than others - that's fine.
