Could someone comment on the durability they've experienced with the ZOE dvl (with MSR)?

I just received one and was a little disconcerted by the package insert that warns against using you fingernail on the buttons; that button function could be ruined. Seems to me that whatever fingernail pressure can do in the short term, fingerflesh pressure can do in the longer term.

Also, there is no tactile sensation of having activated a function. I have to look at the lights on the ZOE or the camera's LCD to confirm. I know that there was a comment about the loudness of the click in the review of last year's model, but they may have gone too far in the other direction.

Yes, The tactile sensation is a week feture of the Zoe, The Mafrotto 521 is very well designed and the Varizoom is also not bad in that sense.

It is practicly imposible to follow the lights and blinkings during real work.

On the other hand, most of the time you only use the REC switch and the zoom rocker.

Probably no consolation to you now, but that version of the controller was indeed a weak design, as I noted in an early review of the Zoe (http://www.dvinfo.net/panasonic/articles/tanaka1.php).

Bebob took that matter to heart and recently updated the design, as I recently reviewed here (http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/camaccs/zoedvlanc2.php).