Has anyone heard/read a statement whether a pre-recording buffer function will/can be enabled via a future firmware upgrade? Thanks in advance.

Nothing official but I do find it intriguing that if you examine the XML you'll see a record cache function set to "false." I infer that at some point it can be set to "true."

<RecordingMode type="normal" cacheRec="false"/>

Hhm, interesting.
Thinking of all the wonderful snapshots I have lost due to tape based recording delays a flash camcorder without the ability of pre-recording seems kind of inefficient to me.

there was a thread here on the forum where a Sony person implied they were looking at it for a possible firmware update, but no promises...