With any gear there are always trade offer and I have to agree with the you on the Leica sensor - it is unusually noisy in low light situations that call for long exposures. Frankly I am disappointed with this limitation along with the inability of the M to accommodate exposures longer than 30seconds - perhaps the Leica designers realized the sensor's limitation set the firmware to limit time exposures. Thank you for the comments regarding the noise levels in low-light exposures.