Another related small but cool discovery. Just looking through the menus on the LX5 this morning, trying to find something specific, an noticed that you can have the camera remember your last manual focus setting and your last zoom setting on startup. So, if I'm doing a bunch of street shooting on a day with good light. I can set the camera to something like 35mm at f4 or f5, set the hyperfocal distance as discussed earlier in this thread, and shoot away for awhile. Then shut the camera off, put it in the bag, and when I next start it up, EVERYTHING comes back to exactly where it was, so I'm ready to shoot almost instantly without having to re-adjust anything. When I was shooting a lot with this cam initially, I'd have to reset the zoom and manual focus each time I started it up. Which was not a terrible burden, but even THAT wasn't necessary it turns out.
In addition to being a great little everything camera, I've come to the conclusion that for outdoor street shooting, this is the best camera I own. And neither the ep2 or gf1 suck in this regard at all. But, jeez, incredible DOF range with the small sensor, quick response (particularly in manual focus mode), and essentially instant hyperfocal setup. Any VERY small differences in IQ don't show up until the light gets low or at much larger print sizes than I ever do. What a great little tool...
-Ray