Why are both of you guys holding out on Sea&Sea? Do you think they make a better housings?
I know so.
Anyway, I am waiting for them also for another reason (I mean other than believing they are one of the best!) which is I have a good quiver of ports and accessories now for Sea&Sea after almost 10 years of UWPhoto.
I have been diving with housings since 2000, have used Hugyfot F80, Sea&Sea since the NX-80 for a Nikons F80s (which I still got! And just made a few dives with it last week!), DX-D50 and the DX-D80 I just sold out. Have lots of friends diving with me with Ikelite, Aquatica and Subal.
I think the only housing that might beat S&S is Seacam. A few years ago I was sure about it, now with the new MDX line from Sea&Sea, I have my doubts. But of course, being considered the Ferrari of the Housings, it comes to you at good cost.
Ikelite advantage is the value, it's cost-benefit ratio, but it stops right there.
Hugyfot had come a long way from the old models, Stephen Hugenshmidt sold the factory to some new belgium guys and they are doing a good job also, maybe better than Aquatica nowadays. And they are a step ahead with the port adapters they have... you can use any port/dome with Hugyfot housings!
Aquatica and Subal comes next. I don't follow Subal, and have only seen a handfull of housings from them... The new Aquatica D300 housing has the same level of finishing and ergonomics that Sea&Sea reached with the NX-100Pro for the Nikon F100 years ago!!! Recently we had a dive where we could compare side-by-side the Aquatica D300 vs Sea&Sea's MDX-D300... it is a no brainer, believe me.
Of course, one should always have in mind the availability of equipment in your area, but coming from Brazil and living in the Middle-East I was pretty far from everyone else, so I had a clear slate to choose from. So I decided to keep Sea&Sea and now I travel to Singapore to get my Sea&Sea equipment at the best store for S&S stuff that there is!
Good luck in finding your own medicine!!! But as in SLR photography, if you choose the right one from the start, you save lot's of bucks from a complete system make-over...