A very negative review of Sony 16-50mm

Not really in the case of this particular lens. That is because the distortion is so extreme at wide angle that quite a lot of the image towards the corners needs to be removed in order to perform the correction. It seems like the latest bodies perform the correction in realtime so the image you see on the LCD is pretty much as it will appear after correction, but with the older bodies that do not perform this realtime correcton you need to 'guess' what the final image will look like after the corners are cut and the image twisted around - and looking at the reviews it seems that quite a lot of the image towards the edge vanishes at widest angle. Sort of a return to the old days of 'Instamatic' film cameras where what you saw in the VF presented only a passing resemblence to what the final framing might be

Not something I would want to put up with unless there was no other option...

I don't see why RAW shooters would have newer cameras... I use my A900 exclusively in RAW mode