Old kit lens, new kit lens or a pro zoom?

Elmokki wrote:

I may have framed my question a bit badly. I own a few primes: Panasonic 25mm f/1.7, Olympus 45mm f/1.8 and the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro. I mostly use the 25mm prime on my camera, but there are two reasons I currently occasionally use the 14-42mm R II: 14mm is substantially wider than 25mm and as long as there's enough light or my camera is on a tripod the image quality is good enough that the only reason to switch to 25mm or 45mm primes is the shallower depth of field available. I also have the cheap Olympus 40-150mm for longer focal lengths and as much as I'd love either of the cheap 300mm zooms, that's a question I don't need help with. It's more of a question of when I'll get whichever is the cheapest (or Panasonic if I have Panasonic camera by then)

I'm pretty well covered for anything except the wider focal lengths, which is where I just simply need a new lens of some kind. If I wanted to truly shoot wide in low light I'd just get the Olympus 12mm f/2.0 even if it's quite expensive. The pro zooms at f/2.8 aren't really that fast anyway, less than a stop faster than the kit zooms at their shortest focal lengths. Currently, without proper image stabilization, even f/1.7 sometimes feels slightly too slow indoors.

I suppose the full range zooms might be an alternative, except that they feel a bit too expensive for what I feel like they are. I generally don't mind swapping to the 40-150mm if I need the extra reach, though of course it might lose me some shots and I'd thus rather buy something more specialized or cheaper. That said, if I did buy a body with weather sealing that would be very interesting.

I guess the main question I wanted to ask is whether I should pay the prices I quoted to get a kit instead of body only or whether I should try to buy a second 14-42mm R II cheaply. That'd obviously depend on which kit lens was available, which is why I wanted opinions on the Oly 14-42mm EZ and Panasonic 12-32mm and 12-60mm kit lenses.

It's really annoying to have to think about this. I thought I could get one of the newer kit lenses for under 100€ as part of a kit. The only kit I've seen where the price premium from having a kit lens is under 100€ is G80, which has the weather sealed Panasonic 12-60mm for 70€ more than just the body. As alluring excuse as that and the weather sealing are to buy a G80, I really don't think I should buy that over GX80 or E-M10 mark 2 with the price difference they have.

As you have the fast primes for the low lighting, I suppose the only consideration is:

1. Size; or
2. versatility of zoom range.

Before that, if it will be used on a latest Pany body (like GX85 or G85 or GH5), I would be in favour of a Dual IS I/II supported lens (or you might be disappointed by the still relatively less effective IBIS only of Pany bodies comparing to EM5 I/II's standard). Upon that terminology, all Oly kit zooms would be ruled out.

For size, 12-32 wins. For zoom range, 12-60 wins. I don't think their IQ (very good in terms of their price) would differ much from each other. 12-35 f/2.8 would be no doubt winning on every aspect to the 2 but heavier/larger, cost much more, and yet not as long as 60...