thanks for the information littlearrow, appreciate it. i actually got the replacement camera from bushnell today, which is much quicker than expected. basically had to pay to ship the old one back to their repair facility in kansas ($8) and give them a check ($10) for return shipping, and received a brand new camera in case 2 weeks later. fingers crossed that this one will last.

my lit. # is 98-1478/09-09, so it looks like i may have gotten the 09 model? hope so as like you said those apparently had a lot less problems.