Futuristic Camera Design Idea #143
To that I'd add my favourite little G9 feature - the built-in ND filter.
Now my brain is going to dump some nonsense which is probably the result of too much coffee last night...
Current technology probably isn't quite up to scratch yet, but a thought occurred to me when reading your list item about the ISO wheel. One of the draw-backs of the mechanical ISO wheel on the G9 is that it precludes having ISO as one of the parameters you can save in C1 or C2 (equivalent to My1 My2 on the Ricohs). There is an advantage of having this a "soft setting", implying that the software could change it regardless of the wheel position; for example, like the aperture setting (or in some cases, the shutter speed) is on these cameras.
So, my thought is: what if something like the G9's ISO wheel were a "soft wheel" - one with a little round LCD (or whatever technology will do this best in the future) screen on it rather than etched markings? Already today, there exist computer keyboards (the "Optimus Maximum" keyboard) where every key has it's own little LCD screen on its surface, and these can be individually "programmed' to display whatever character or icon the user wants. Also, we're just starting to see [expensive] screens that really look like paper with extremely high resolution, allowing for legible small writing.
If the concept of using a little screen like that were applied to a wheel on top of the camera, it could serve as ISO setting, White Balance setting, exposure compensation setting (like on old manual SLR's), etc - moving many of these things from the rear menu to the wheel. A little button under or in the middle of the wheel would toggle which function is active, and the little screen changes accordingly. What was an ISO wheel now displays, for example, a set of White Balance settings (or perhaps real colour temperature values??). Then, even if you dial in ISO 400 on the wheel, and then switch to one of your Custom modes (C1/C2 - My1/My2) where ISO 200 was saved, it would change ISO, and the little screen would reflect the change.
If the wheel were made free-spinning rather than click-stopped (and spinnable only when an interlock is pressed), then such a wheel would allow finer granularity of settings - why, it could even serve as a focus wheel, while showing distance markings on it. Where the positions must be more clearly delineated - ie, for ISO - the ISO setting you're closest to would become bold or a different colour so you get some visual feedback in the absense of that click-stop. Or, even better, maybe they could emulate the click-stop feedback with a little mechanical "jolt" for some settings, which would make the click-stop sensation entirely programmable.
OK, I had better go start up the coffee machine now and get my head out of the clouds....