I am not an owner of a digital camera, but started vieiwing in 2000 too purchase for my daughters. First one purchased, Olympus 4040 in 2001. Second one was last year, a Kodak. Final decision was theirs. I have been learning from various web sites and still leaning towards the Pano for myself.
Now, I base my decision on clarity. The FZ50 at 400 is more pleasing to the eye than the LX1 at 400 ISO.
I disagree with your comment about the window slats. Just looking at the slats and balcony components as a whole, the FZ50 is much clearer, it is just the LX1 has a more deeper colour, but with more noise. I like the softer look with better detail of the FZ50.
Thanks to Andrew McP at dpreview forum, I now know about your web site. By the way, you call it a LZ50 instead of FZ50. Is that a typo?
Thanks.