am I opening up a big ol' can o' worms here....
Yes. Extreemly Large. You could go fishing all day with that amount of worms. Minidiscs have come and gone. There's no need to throw one out, but no need to reinvest unless you need decent real time recording.

Rob, by your earlier lack of comment, I assume the S Series remote won't work with any of the current generation?

This thread brings up a question... Is there anything that isn't "big in japan"?

Matthew