Aha - just came across some Fuji X100 answers to one of questions I’d raised in my hands-on visit with it. 

According to the Technical Specifications, the minimum focus distance when you’re NOT in Macro Mode is 80cm / 2’7” - so my theory about why it wouldn’t acquire focus on a tripod I was fairly close to may have been correct, that I was actually TOO close.  That’s a bit of a shame, as the access in & out of macro mode is via one of those little buttons on the four-way pad on the back, and I just never enjoy using those on little cameras.  Ah well.

Also, I found out this morning that indeed, the highest shutter speed does vary depending on your aperture; that is, the camera goes up to 1/4000th of a second - but NOT at f/2, only at apertures of f/8 and smaller.  That said, there is a 3-stop neutral density filter (ND) that you can drop into place, which lets you use shallow depth of field in bright light - but again, it’s another dig-in-the-menu option, not just something you can do on the fly.  And we’ll see if three stops is enough, in the crazy harsh New Zealand sun!

Last thing I uncovered today is just that the memory card read/write speed may be better with a newer card than I was using on the day, as the camera is capable of using what they call UHS-I (ultra high speed) SDHC cards; so theoretically it should be able to dump the buffer to the card faster than it was, not that I actually had a problem with it on the day.  Good to know, though!  The Fuji Guys have recommended at least a Class 6 card, but you can go as far as you like it seems - Class 10 at least, and UHS-I beyond that if you like. 

Personally, I’ll probably get a bigger/better card for one of my working cameras (Canon 1-series dSLRs) and bump one of my older ones down to the X100 - unless I start hitting problems with speed in it.  We’ll see…