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I am not hung up on it as such, just that the 14 bit ADC is ultimately a limitation on the camera. From what I have found you have to make a compromise, either you can make use of up to the full dynamic range of the sensor by reducing gain, with a penalty in read noise and discrimination as information is effectively discarded by the division and rounding to a whole number (Using the term discrimination in place of resolution as it will just be a confusion) or, make use of the best noise profile and most faithful input/output conversion for faint stuff at the effective expense of dynamic range, as the ADC output will be maxed at approx a quarter of the sensors well depth. It is a question that will never be answered as what Sony built it with is what they built it with, but I would bet you a nice bottle of scotch that it would be able to produce measurably better results with a 16 bit ADC.
In my case it will be more a matter of informing my next buying decision rather than being grumpy about the one I have. I still enjoy the camera and will be using it for many months yet, but if I dropped it in the dark and it was not economic to repair, I would buy a different cam as a replacement.
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