There have been a couple of threads lately on whether the optical viewfinder is really necessary or the electronic-only version has a future with serious photographers. It seems Panasonic is willing to incorporate the advantages that an EVF-only system provides and give it a try. It's going to be difficult starting at ground-zero, but very interesting. I would think that the casual user, P&S converts would have to maintain the market for a long time until it could become mainstream with the 'serious amateur'.

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/panasonicG1/page3.asp

TF