Andy, I bet you're right. Please believe me that I am not being snarky here, but I am really curious to see... Would you be able to find a nice recognizable landmark 600 meters away from you (use Google Earth to get the distance) and create three pictures similar to the ones I posted? I would enjoy very much seeing how much better image quality you get. I know it would be better, but how much better is what I want to see.

And is that 17-40 zoom in 35mm equivalency? You really have a 17mm wide angle? That's incredible! That alone might almost make me a DSLR convert. I can simulate 17mm by taking two pictures and stitching them together (I do that regularly with the Microsoft ICE program) but in doing that I risk weird distortions where I failed to hold the camera at exactly the same angle(s) for the two shots. Usually it works, but other times, well...

If you do take the three pictures, keep in mind that the longest shot (the ugly one) is zoomed 87x the widest one.

tanstaafl.