Canon 5D3 watch

(May 1 - update)
(April 20 - update)
(April 4 - update)
(April 3 - update)
(March 29 - updates and update)
The last 17K+ photographs in my Lightroom library have this distribution of ISOs—more than 50% of them are at greater than ISO 800.



Therefore the Canon 5d3, which takes usable ISOs into the stratosphere is of interest to me. Not that I'm buying it any time soon, but since I'm watching it, might as well gather useful information here.
Photographer reviews:

• Jeff Ascough
• Martin Bailey
• Bert Stephanie
• Gordon Laing
• Vincent Laforet
• Brent Stirton
• Philip Bloom
• Trent Chau 
• Spencer Boerup
• Ryan Brenizer
• Arthur Morris 
• Elson and Niccolls (+) (via Rajan Parrikar)
• Neil van Niekerk
• Fred Miranda 
• James Morrissey

Miscellaneous:

• Suitability for astrophotography
• Headroom for pushing shadows in post-processing
• DPReview sample shots

Various gripes about the 5D3 (in no particular order)

• Price (introductory price of USD 3500 is 500 more than Nikon's very impressive new D800.)
• Auto-focus does not work for lenses slower than f/5.6  (in particular birders and wildlifers are incensed at no autofocus for Canon's f/4 super telephoto lenses with a 2x TC).
• No increase at megapixels (only a slight increase over the 5d2. Landscape, studio, architecture photographers are unhappy).
• No support for a manual focus screen (the 5D2's screen could be replaced with one better suited for manual focus.  Users of tilt&shift or alternate lenses like Zeiss are not pleased.) Update: the manual focus folks on fredmiranda.com find the 5D3 good.
• Spot metering only at the central focus point (people feel this is a deliberate crippling of the camera to protect the more expensive 1DX.)
• No uncompressed HDMI video out (people are not happy with the codecs provided.)
• No USB 3.0 (only USB 2.0)
• People suspect that there is little improvement in dynamic range at ISO 100 over the 5d2.
• The rear LCD is polarized and cannot be viewed at some angles with polarized sunglasses.

Teething problems

• Canon's latest DPP software renders a soft (i.e. not sharp) end result for the 5d3 RAW.
• Adobe's software is in beta or not yet there.
• Pocket Wizard (remote flash controller) is supposedly not working correctly with the 5d3.
• Noises from Image Stabilization in the long lenses?