Should I buy the LX7?

LakesGeek wrote:

Or something else?

I'm aware that in the Panasonic forum I may encounter some bias Wasn't sure where else to post though where people would really know about this camera.

I have a good (albeit now slightly ageing) SLR in the form of a Canon 30D, (familiarity with Canon making the G15 another temptation), a very much ageing Canon G6, and for pocketability a Panasonic DMC-TZ5.

What I'm looking for is - well the tl;dr is an upgrade from the G6. Something fairly pocketable but that I can be creative with. Something that I would aim to carry when I can, but it's fairly acceptable for it to be more suited to a jacket pocket and for me to sometimes leave it behind for the TZ5 or just my smartphone.

Most of my photos are taken up in the hills of the lake district, so mostly landscape, and to be honest I would tend to just take my 30D with me on something like that. However the landscape habit transfers itself to when say I'm out and about in general and wouldn't bother lugging an SLR around but spot a nice sunset for example. Also increasingly I've found myself procrastinating over processing the SLR pics due mainly to the tedium of sensor dust - editing dark blobs out of the sky gets rather tiresome. I think my post-processing laziness attracts me to a camera that can get decent results on its own (and is sealed!) but I don't just want a point-and-shoot.

Both an attraction and a concern is the price. I can pick one up for £255 delivered from a few places, which is amazing, compared to the price of its competitors. The similarly specced and similarly regarded G15 is £310 from the cheapest place I can find with other similar cameras going up to 400+. But why? Is there a problem with the LX7, or a new model coming out imminently or..? Is the G15 worth the extra 55? The G15 has a nicer zoom but looks a bit less pocketable and I think I prefer the controls on the LX7.

Creatively I want to try and mix in a bit of macro here and there. Maybe I should just stick to the SLR with a macro lens. But the LX7 appears to be fairly good for macro shots which makes it tempting once again for those moments when you're out somewhere randomly and think "that would make a nice macro shot". I'm not a big street/people photographer, I'm just too nervous about people's reactions to having a camera pointed at them (to say nothing of the reaction if someone's kid is in the shot, which at least in the UK typically leads to the mother marching over 'asking' you to delete it!), so that style of photography isn't a huge concern to me.

A final concern I have is that I read one person on the forums saying it takes 8 seconds to retract the lens? That seems an awfully long time when you just want to put it back in your pocket and go. But I wasn't sure if the poster was referring to the preview mode or something.