You may have a bad camera. I use the 30 and get excellent quality. I generally set the EV compesation for -.3 to avoid over exposure and washing out highlights. As for bland pics, I use photoShop to tweak them. I do agree that the shutter lag and slow booting is annoying and that (especially with gloves) it is hard to turn on and off. As for the flash, I keep it disabled most of the time. BTW, the pics you post look fine!