So would you say this is more of a gadget camera rather than an everyday use camera? I have just paid out for a pretty decent point and shoot, would I replace it with one of these camera's or opt to use both?
I do love the concept of them but if all I am ever going to get out of them is a 6x4" pic to print at the end of the day then it's only really useful for "playing" with?
I can't see a Lytro camera replacing a "pretty decent point-and-shoot"; they're very different.
The post-hoc refocusing feature is neat but I can't think of many practical or artistic purposes for which it would actually be more useful than having way more pixels. But I'm not an expert photographer and could easily be wrong. One kind of situation in which it might be useful is where an object is moving rapidly towards or away from the camera, but not moving much laterally. Then the freedom not to worry about rapid and accurate focusing might be useful. As soon as your object is moving laterally too, though, the limited resolution is going to bite you: you've avoided having to locate the object accurately in z at the cost of needing to get x,y right, so to speak.
There may be non-gimmicky applications for which Lytro is The Right Thing. Right now, I can't think what they'd be. Depth measurement, perhaps.
Spatial resolution will increase at the same rate the process allows the sensor elements to shrink, so, in a couple years, a Lytro-like imaging sensor will have the same resolution as a top-of-the-line DSLR.
I do love the concept of them but if all I am ever going to get out of them is a 6x4" pic to print at the end of the day then it's only really useful for "playing" with?