Yeah, after reading both parts, the simple takeaway is that the Nikon's strength is shooting color and the Ricoh's B&W and with the Ricoh you have to be more careful about blowing highlights. At least with the raw - Ricoh seems fine in color on the jpegs. I hadn't really thought about the Nikon being particularly strong in color and weak in B&W when I was shooting with it, but going back through the stuff I did, I left a WAAAAAAY higher percentage in color than I usually do, particularly with my street shooting. Probably more to do with how much I liked the color files than disliking the B&W conversions, because I'm plenty happy with those too.
So of course now I start over thinking things... I'm more of a B&W shooter mostly, so per Ming's findings (assuming mine match his once I have the cameras in hand), I should arguably get the Ricoh. OTOH, I know my way around B&W processing a LOT better than color, so I can DEAL with weaker B&W files a whole lot better than I can weak color files, which I can really get into trouble with (I remember wrestling with the GH2 and G3 raw files and getting really poor results while other folks were getting brilliant results with them). I just went back and processed a few more Nikon shots in B&W and I'm fine with those. Perhaps not as sublime as some of the stuff Ming is turning out with the Ricoh, but a lot of that is down to Ming, I'm pretty sure - my stuff would probably look like my stuff coming out of the Ricoh OR the Nikon... Which makes me think I should go with the Nikon because I can DEAL with its weakness (to the extent it has one), but maybe not as well with the Ricoh's weak point.
OTOH, I shot a LOT of raw+jpeg with the GXR-28 and I love those color jpegs I was getting in decent light and the B&W I created from the DNGs in all light. Which leads me back to the Ricoh - just shoot raw+jpeg when you think there's any chance you're gonna want to leave something in color in half decent light... BUT I really love some of the very low light color images I was getting from the Nikon at ISO 3200-6400 and I wouldn't trust the Ricoh jpegs (or any jpegs) to handle those color shots as well. So, I'm quite conflicted and haven't even touched the Ricoh yet.
I suppose once I start shooting with both, if the Ricoh B&W files blow me away as much as they did Ming (which I suspect they may not because my stuff isn't as subtle or refined as his to begin with), then maybe I get the Ricoh, shoot raw+jpeg and make the best of the color. If not, though, I probably go with the Nikon because I love the color raw files and I didn't have any problem with the B&W conversions either. So I guess I'll have to see. Do I choose based on the camera's strong point matching my own or on my greater ability to cope with its weakness???
Bottom line, though, both cameras look like total winners and, as I've said before, it would have been nice if only one had been produced in this time-frame. In which case there wouldn't be any choice to make and we'd all just celebrate how great it was! Now we have to decide and, predictably, sides are being taken and the competition has begun. I find Ming's reviews really quite helpful - plenty of technical information, but all relevant to how we'd actually USE the cameras, relevant to the type of photographs we'd actually MAKE with these cameras.
-Ray