Since I do not personally have this experience, perhaps you can tell me at which ISOs the Sony sensor outputs an appreciable difference in IQ, for a given (normal, not pixel-peeping) screen view or print size.
I would normally question the validity of this method of comparison, but I'll assume that you have some good reason for this and treat your request seriously. Start here:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong11/page17.asp
Start at ISO 400 and compare the LX3 shots with the G11 shots. Even if you reduce the images to some small size but you use a good monitor/printer, you should start noticing that the LX3 is losing the ability to distinguish between the different shades of gray at the right on the kodak gray scale (counting from 19 down). Things just get worse as you increase the ISO.
What this shows it that noise is eroding the details in the shadows in the LX3 shots.
IMO, there are plenty of other differences as well, but I chose this one because it's an easy one to identify and it persists across a wide range of viewing sizes.
Others with different video/still requirements can disagree, but my point is that it is not a completely insane decision on Samsungs part to target people like me.
I don't think it's so much that they are targeting people like you, as it is that they just used the best sensor that was available. It just so happens that Sony
greedily and purposefully omitted HD capability so that people also buy next year's "new&improved with HD!" model optimized the sensor for stills.
(Focusing on your struck out bits): Normally, I would point out that such positions are full of holes because they are based upon a bunch of premises that are demonstrably false, e.g., that a manufacturer controls enough of the market that it can intentionally sandbag products and ignore the effects of competition.* In this particular case though, Sony does have a ridiculously large share of the market for, roughly speaking, sensors targeted for good quality compact still cameras, that it is at least reasonable to consider the possibility of Sony to acting as something close to a monopolist.
- A lot of people have a view of firms that seems to have been influenced by the classic IBM golden screwdriver stories:
http://www.sdsusa.com/dictionary/index.htm?g#g2g
(scroll down to get to the golden screwdriver)
What people forget is that IBM could do this precisely because they essentially had a monopoly on mainframes and didn't need to worry about a competitor offering a better deal. In a market with real competition, this kind of sandbagging with huge upgrade costs wouldn't last for long because a competitor would realize that they could steal sales by offering better performance at a better price and the golden screwdriver upgrade pricing would rapidly be pushed down (though not necessarily elminated) due to competition.
--
Ron Parr
Digital Photography FAQ:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery:
http://www.pbase.com/parr/ 
