The F11 isn't officially released in the US, hence it's hard to find,
especially at first-rate dealers.  I ended up buying from Broadway
Camera, which is not something I'd do under ordinary circumstances.
They looked like the *most* ethical place offering the F11 in the US
that I found -- for example, their website not only says they include
all standard accessories, but they list what those are for each camera
(and the list for the F11 matched overseas sites).  There was one
place that seemed to specialize in importing Japanese gadgets that had
it, but they wanted $379 (Broadway had it for $286).

And I did in fact get it, a day and a weekend *earlier* than they'd
suggested on the phone, and for the price listed.  

I'm kind of pleased to not have the viefinder, just on general
principles.  I approve of LCD preview.  I'm sure in the occasional
bright situation I'll regret it, but I bought it for the low-light
capabilities after all.  And it lets the body be smaller, which I like
(at least down to this size; smaller can certainly be overdone).

To start with, it has a bigger sensor than most -- though only pretty
marginally (I see it listed as 1/1.7", with an awful lot of others
having gone form a 1/2.5" up to a 1/1.8" lately).  I wish they'd done
it as a 4MP camera, though -- entirely adequate for snapshooting, and
the same size sensor at 4MP should be considerably less noisy.  

I'm with you on the batteries.  If the Canon A610 had used CF instead
of SD, I probably would have bought that instead (completely
sacrificing available light performance; but gaining more zoom,
tilt/swivel LCD, and standard batteries).  But for me SD is nearly as
exotic as XD, all my previous digital cameras use CF.

I haven't looked at any of the photos critically on a big monitor yet,
and haven't shot it against anything else either, so no opinion yet on
the actual image quality.