Yeah, but I bet I can't use my OM2 lenses...!!! Ok so it will have megapixels but will no doubt be mega dollars. Still, this time last year if someone had told me I would buy an E-10 I would have called them stupid...you just never know. If the price is right...??
. but meanwhile my E-10 gives me tremendous satisfaction and the opportunity to shoot the images the way I want them to be. 
That doesn't mean that it won't match the needs of the majority of the people. In other words: not everyone is chasing behind the latest resolution!
You're wrong. It's definitively smaller!
What is the benefit of having 6-MP-cameras with 35mm-size-sensors, if the current 35mm-interchangeable lenses are - in terms of optical resolution - way behind digital camera lenses. Mounting a 35mm-lens on a digicam is like mounting bike wheels on a car. I would prefer to have a lens system specially designed for the appropriate CCD-sensor. It will allow not only to have high-resolution lenses, but also to build them smaller and faster (in terms of max. aperture).
Look about 2 inches south of the "Preview" button.
Not by a whole lot though... 4/3" = 33.9mm
I don't think this is true for a lens of decent quality. Assuming 1800 vertical pixels across 24mm on the above 4/3" sensor, that's only 37.5 lp/inch. It is not unusual for SLR lenses to have a higher resolving power than that. There is no doubt in my mind that a full-frame 6MP sensor will give you "real" data on each pixel, and not have reached the physical limits of the lens in front of it. I believe this will hold true at least up to about 12MP (e.g., 4000x3000) for 35mm. Of course, at that end of the spectrum, it is usually not the lens or the CCD that limits image sharpness and quality. You'll need an absolutely stable, vibration-free camera and virtually perfect focus to achieve tha resolution.
Well, they will be announcing it in Feb 2002... it won't start shipping until summer 2002, and if the E-10 is any indication, give them a couple of months before availability ramps up. I'm guessing 16 to 18 months before a lot of us will have the chance to play with one. Hang on to those E-10's in the meantime.
I'm still debating the merits of this... Olympus has nowhere near the lens selection or third-party support that Canon and Nikon enjoy. If I want an interchangeable lens SLR, would it not make sense that I select a mount that offers the widest availability? Olympus certainly isn't in the running in that respect.
Too bad for you that 4/3" is NOT the diagonal of the CCD-sensor. It's only a reference value which has nothing to do with the real diagonal size of the CCD. The 4/3" sensor from Kodak KAF-5100CE ( http://www.kodak.com/US/en/digital/ccd/kaf5100ce.shtml ) has a chip size of 19.8 to 14.6 mm which gives a diagonal of Sqrt((19.8^2)+(14.6^2)) = 24.6 mm.
...but IMHO still enough for the amateur and semi-professional use. With 5 MP resolution you can have prints up to 12 x 16 inches without noticing any difference with a traditional photograph. That's what really counts; not the pixel count! And I know very few people who need print above this size.
There will be no focal multiplier as the lens will be exclusively designed for the camera resp. the CCD. There's only a focal multiplier when you adapt a 35mm lens on a digital camera with smaller sensor.
I personally don't care about the availability of a lens system. What really counts for me is that this lens system offers the focal ranges I need.
