Man, tough crowd. I have a Lytro, and I love it. I'm quite a fan of the technology. It's not perfect, and it's uses are (for now) somewhat limited, but I feel y

Man, tough crowd. I have a Lytro, and I love it. I'm quite a fan of the technology. It's not perfect, and it's uses are (for now) somewhat limited, but I feel your criticism of it may be a little overly harsh. First off, the current Lytro model does not, and will not, replace any traditional camera I own. I like the technology, and it has it's uses even beyond demoing the refocusing abilities, but it's definitely a supplement to my camera arsenal and not a replacement for anything. You're right that you can "simulate" focus-stacking with a traditional camera, as long as the object you're shooting is sitting still and there's no motion of the camera or in the frame at all. Any motion at all and your simulated focus stacking doesn't hold up well. Likewise, you can get a perspective shift from multiple images by slight movement with a traditional camera. Assuming again that no actual motion happens and that no observable length of time transpires between the successive offset shots. Since the Lytro doesn't have these time limitations, and since focus can be done after the fact, I've been able to get a couple of shots of events that I could never get with a traditional camera, just based on the ability to point the camera and snap the shutter without having to even wait for autofocus to happen. The hardware in the camera to me feels far ahead of the software that drives it. One of the biggest criticisms I have of the Lytro is that the camera captures a vast amount of light field information, and through The Appropriate Application of Mathematics, you should really be able to do a lot more with the captured pictures than you can now. I remain hopeful that as the camera software progresses that more of these possibilities will come to light, and so far other than the time involved to develop the software I haven't been disappointed - there have been pretty regular software updates, and features are being incrementally added. The Lytro isn't perfect - I'll grant you that - but it's a radical change in technology, and I think that over time the technology can only get better. The price for the current model is a little higher than "what the heck, I'll try one out" typically justifies. One thing I use my camera for - more than the refocusability - is macro photography. The Lytro has an absolutely insane macro focus capability. It can focus right down to the front of the exterior lens, and it does a great job at shooting small objects at short range - better than any SLR macro lens I have, and I have a couple of "not cheap" ones to compare it to.