This was prompted by a comment from David Bonn on a different forum.
If you are after a top of the line digital camera, with a really sharp and wide lens, take a close look at the Sony R1. Disregard all of the negative comments on the net about it, they always come from nerds that have never used the camera. you simply cannot buy a better digital camera/lens combination for the money.
Franco
with an even more opinioneted comment than usual

My favorite feature of the R1 is that the lens starts at 24mm, which is unheard of for other digital cameras. And of course it has a sensor the size of a DLSR, which increases noise performance and weight of the camera. But the only disadvantage of the camera is that it is really slow compared to a DSLR, especially when shooting RAW (in terms of file write performance).

Franco,

One of my favorite sites for digital cameras rated the R1 very highly for much the same reasons you've stated.

Sony R1

Excerpt: "I'll start as I shall no doubt finish this little piece of editorial, the lens is worth the price of the DSC-R1 alone. That fact is not to be underestimated, it's a great lens which provides you with a very useful 24 - 120 mm zoom range (which will be sufficient for the majority of users). Doing the math it's pretty clear that you have to spend a fairly considerable sum on lenses for a D-SLR to get close to this range and the quality of the DSC-R1's lens."

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony-r1.shtml