My first Leica was a barely used M3 I inherited from my great uncle. I was well used to the Nikons, Hasselblads and large format cameras I'd been using for years, and didn't think I'd care about the Leica mythos- but the camera sure was pretty. I put a roll of film through it and was simply blown away by the results- but I struggled with the slow loading and fiddly rangefinder focusing. But the beautifully sharp, almost 3-D looking images made me keep using the thing- and the photographer friends who raved about Leicas made me curious. After a year or two I noticed I would pick up the M3 more and more, and my other 35mm gear wasn't being used. I inherited a 50mm DR, 35mm goggled 'cron, a 135 f4 Elmar, and a visoflex housing and 400mm Telyt along with the M3 (my great uncle didn't do anything half assed...) and I added a 90mm lens and couple of the then new Voigtlander wide angles to my kit and kept using the thing when I wanted to shoot 35mm because the results looked so nice. Eventually I got used to the rangefinder focusing, and learned how different it was to use quickly and effectively (no small thing, coming from SLR focusing, which is an order of magnitude in difference). At first I was putting up with the weirdnesses and difficulty and weight of the camera for the results, but after a few years of organically gravitating to it I came to love the Leica, and wanted to add another body. I bought an M4-2, then an M6- but I found them a pale drink of water compared to the M3. The finders in those cameras were small and dim and the RF patch flared out on me all the time. I was spoiled by the big, almost life-size magnification of the M3 and the rock solid dependable RF patch. I sold the others and bought another M3. I've looked through a few M2's, and would love to shoot a 35mm lens without the bulky goggles, but I find the lower magnification and flare of the finders unacceptable after the M3.
It's 20 years now since my great uncle gave me his M3 (and seven years since he went to his reward) and I'm still shooting with that pair of M3's for 95% of my 35mm film shooting. At this point I'm unfazed by the slightly slow loading (now I can do it in the dark, and I always get 39 frames from a 36 exposure roll); I have come to prefer a camera without a built in meter, and I can correctly focus my M3's faster than any other camera I own. I can still remember when I used the camera despite it's shortcomings, but at this point familiarity and affection have erased the impression of those shortcomings to the extent that I no longer really know what they were.
But I know one thing for sure about cameras and people at this point: to each his own.
