I rented an M9, 50mm lux, and an extra battery for The Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores a week ago. I had wanted to try an M9 and Leica glass and since the event didn't allow "professional" or interchangable lens cameras without a press pass I knew there was no way my D7000 would make it through the gate. Luckily all 3 days when the security looked through my bag and saw the M9 they didn't give it a second thought while a woman in front of me with D90 got turned back.
All of these pictures were taken at sunset or later. The person in the first photo is a friend and she really does have hair that purple, you usually just have to catch it in the right light to see it shine.
I've been interested in the M because of the Leica glass mostly, but I do love the quality of the files that the M9 produced. I've owned several Nikon bodies from the D{1,2,3}00 and now the D7000. The lack of AA filter is quite noticeable and has me considering the removal on it on my D7000.
The rangefinder experience was fun and suited me quite well. With my Nikons I usually operate differently than most people around me when it comes to shooting. I tend to take my time to compose the shot (waiting for the subject usually) instead of taking a series of pictures hoping one got the subject doing what I wanted. My last trip with the Nikon got me into wanting bokeh more and that ultimately led me to the Leica world.
I like the M9 and think it has just the right mix of functionality and control for what most photographs need, but found it wasn't quite electronically rugged enough. I found it would spend long periods of time trying to write images to the SD card when the battery was around 25%. This led me to lose a couple images. The first day I thought the camera had frozen so I took the battery out and reinserted it. The second day I realized it was the battery being low. I reset the camera again because it was taking minutes and there were other things around me with the light changing at sunset that I wanted to capture. On the 3rd day I watched the battery and changed it before there was an issue.
I've since bought a couple of lenses, the 35mm perar II and the 135mm tele-elmar. To hold me over through the upcoming product announcements, or M10 if the announcements aren't enough, I just got a Nex-5 with adapter so I can start using the glass collection I'm building.