Does the flip-down LCD screen have a locking device, to keep it up against the camera, or will it sag after much use?

What do you mean by "I'd be more worried about Sony's proprietary obsessions?"

SONY tends to force their customers into proprietary technologies such as the memory stick, their own spin on formatting, cables and a host of others which the Canon and other camera companies don't do. Canon, for instance, relies on SD cards, which are pretty much the standard in point and shoot for memory cards. This means you can use any you happen to currently have and they are much cheaper than memory sticks. Faster too, IMHO. You can also use them in other technologies like Camcorders, PDAs, DMPs, and even mp3 players no matter who makes them (save Sony), whereas that memory stick is only going to be used in another SONY.

This Camera doesn´t use a memory stick, it uses a Compact Flash memory card, quite standard I think.

I stand corrected. But if you look at their formatting, you'll probably find proprietary spin on their RAW formats.