Still have one of these, pleased but not overwhelmed by it. Yes, it is heavy, bulky, slow. Image quality is fair, sometimes it has a hard time locking focus.
The up side? LS-120. Stores near 500 images on one disk, battery life requires a second battery. If you have a SuperDisk already it is great, if not, USB transfer is slow. When I got mine I got a free LS drive, $100 MIR, and second battery. Paid less than this AR brand new. Had to send it back to Panasonic for repair at exactly 1 year. What a nightmare.
I still like the camera for the simplicity and Superdisk. I think the price is a bit much here.