I guess that I've drunk the Kool-Aid.  Where I work we are constantly challenged to find ways to be more efficient, to be creative and to save money.  Color management that works consistently is the last big holy grail.  Accurate proofs that can be matched on press means quicker make-readies, less waste and more available press time.  The companies that are dying a slow death don't get that.  Those that do will still be around when the dust settles.  There will be less of us, but maybe a little more money for everyone without the guys that are giving work away just to postpone the inevitable.  You gotta be smart and there are a lot of dumb printers who still think they can do it the same old way.  You can't do that anymore.  You have to invest and in order to save money you have to spend some.  I did the annual ROI on what the savings would be if we cut 10 minutes off of every make-ready.  It's HUGE.
- Just my two cents.

We run the LH-PJ plate as well and have a RO system on site so it's not an issue.  Also use the RO water in the presses. We monitor the PH daily and compare it to city tap water... quite a difference.  Much lower PH and much more consistent.

I wouldn't blame Fuji.  When the box has been opened (and resealed) and the plates are cut crooked... chances are very high that your supplier/distributor had the plates cut down from a larger size to fit your press.  That happens if they don't have any to ship and you need some.  Check the label on the box to see what size the plates are.  Usually they will write on it or cover up the original label.  That's the only time that I've seen that problem.

Different part of the country obviously.  In this market ALL of the medium to large printers are with Agfa or Fuji (for plates), except for one.  And that one is because it's a corporate decision made at head office.  I know of one major printer who went out on tender to all three.  Agfa and Fuji were relatively close and Kodak was about 25% less.  So much lower that the printer decided to stay with their present supplier rather than switch.  The reason?  They looked at it from a numbers POV and couldn't believe the difference. They knew that Kodak was not making money at the prices they were quoting and they were concerned about having a major supplier that would be unable to support them... and maybe not be around.  Kodak has been trying to buy market share because they desperately needed the cash.  You can't do that forever... it will catch up to you.

BTW... Kodak doesn't make film or imagesetters anymore either.  (...but why would anyone???) 
Maybe the writing is on the wall.

Geee... they put out a press release saying how they thought it was a great deal (for them).  Don't get me wrong, Prinergy is a great product.  But of all the big boys... Kokak is the one with the biggest money problems.

I have to disagree with you DCS.  You may have seen that Kodak just did a major re-financing in the last month with KKR.  To get the money they needed they are paying 10 to 12% interest on the loan plus giving away up to 30% of the company.  The shares are trading at 1/2 what they were a year ago and the company market cap is 1.16 billion right now.  Hell... they paid that much for just Creo if I remember correctly.  Basically they are burning up a ton of money every quarter and they were expected to run out of cash by the middle of 2010 if they didn't get the new $700 million in new financing.  You are right that they are winning some deals because they are undercutting both Agfa and Fuji right now BIG time.  They have to... even if they don't make money on the deal it keeps the cas flow coming and that's what they need.

Sorry, haven't seen that at all.

We have no issues with PrintDrive at all.  It's been rock solid for us.  We use it to send tiffs out to BlackMagic and to drive SherpaProof and CTP direct.  BlackMagic drives all the lo-res proofers.

Yup we do.  I know they've gotten rid of it in version 6 though.  It's replaced by "PlateMaker".  Still have to do some homework on that one though. 

We have a full Apogee workflow (except for the WebPortal) and are very happy with it.  Currently on version 5 - plan on upgrading to 6 in the next few months.  Don't find it too buggy at all. Do find it very fast and ...it just works.  Agfa support is excellent.  I do agree with DCS on the service for the plotters.  Agfa dumped the hardware support on inkjet plotters a couple of years ago and I have told them many times that we will never buy another proofing system from them unless that changes.  They have no problem selling you a proofer... they just don't want to support it.  That doesn't fly with me.

If you can handle ...a few bad words... this explains it all.
 
http://creativity-online.com/work/xtranormal-graphic-designer-vs-client/17470

I agree... still a little bit off.  This might be what you're talking about though...
http://novawrite.com/

Agreed.  The only A4, A5 sized jobs that we print are for European customers.  Everything in North America is letter, legal etc.

As of Quark 8 - Quark Passport doesn't exist anymore.  Quark 8 now has multiple language dictionaries... just like ID.

What versions of Sublima do you run... 240?  Is your competition running 20 micron Stacatto ...or 10?
I've heard that unlike Sublima, it is very difficult to make any (4-color) color adjustments on press with Stacatto.  In other words... come on in for the press check but if you don't like it, there's not much we can do.