The next high end Olympus MFT camera is likely to be bigger, more epxensive and with more features for pros than the E-M5, and I suspect it may well be optimised for fast AF with Four Thirds lenses in some way as this is a key issue Olympus is now striving to assess and is certainly not a negative given the availibility of reasonably priced superb FT lenses.

I am not aware of any comparable testing with the latest Olympus kit lenses vs the Canon kit lenses, however, historically, the Olympus kit lenses have been better built and had better image quality.
The kit lenses a really for documentary day time or night time flash photography in well lit situations.
If you want the best imagery from MFT then I would strongly encourage buying the prime lenses which are very nice indeed.
The 20mm f/1.7 pancake is a great sharp compact lens, fantastic for parties and urban night walks, but AF is slow and noisy, and the bokeh is very average compared to the newer prime lenses such as the Olympus 12mm f/2.0, Olympus 17mm f/1.8 (when it comes out), Sigma 19mm f/2.8, Panasonic 25mm f/1.4, Olympus 45mm f/1.8, Olympus 60mm macro and the brilliant Olympus 75mm f/1.8.

I am not a great fan of zoom lenses other than for travel or wildlife / nature photography.

The Panasonic f/2.8 lenses will be better image quality and more versatile than the usual kit lenses but will not give the same shallow DOF a f/1.8 prime lens will give, and generally the bokeh will not be as nice.

It depends what is important to your style of photography.

The fantastic situation for MFT users is that there are so many options to choose from and most are far more compact and more affordable than the dSLR options.

In the interim, there is the Panasonic GH-3 which is also going to be pushing the E-M5 as being the best camera – but depends on which features are important to you.

I do not think there will be any new Olympus models this year.

It is expected this will be resolved in the next year or so, although some cameras have implemented it, but with the artefacts still present.

You can use any 4/3 lens on m43 camera via the adapter, but unless the lens is CDAF compatible, AF will take 1-2 secs for a stationary subject and never AF on a moving subject, and totally forget about C-AF or AF tracking.

RAW+jpeg yes, me too. Why not? Card space is cheap.

I took both a Canon 40D with Sigma 10-20mm and a Fuji S100fs on the 2008 trip, PLUS a Canon HF100 HD camcorder. I found it difficult to choose whether to concentrate on stills or video, but I ended up with around 2000 stills and 2000 video clips in 8 weeks of travelling. I’m still exploiting them. So glad I shot RAW+jpeg, because so many shots were difficult. Having the raws saves my bacon. Even now, 4 years later, I’m still working through them.

I have recently produced a Blu-ray disc which I must immodestly say would knock you out. The Glory of Venice. It’s only 11 mins, set to Vivaldi. Stills only. Next step is to make a new version with HD video included, as a three movement concerto disc. Workin’ on it.

Also, 10 years ago I was asking, “Why do we need a mechanical shutter?” Never got an answer for that one. (Electronics is my field: just gate the sensor electronically) Something about temperature and noise apparently. Academic now.

Anyway, back to topic: I feel comfortable starting with 4/3 as I can use any 4/3 lens on any 4/3 or M4/3 body (with adapter, yes?)

Crumbs, after 45 years of film cameras and lenses, carrying weight and size is not high on my list of priorities. Optical quality is. And IBIS.