I think the OP stated he wasn't trying to start a "I hate the IL" thread, which has been ruled by the moderators as inacceptable, anyway.

I bought my first "IL/MIM" S&W last year and love it, it's a 619. The only thing I didn't like about it was the goodyear's; I quickly put a set of Ahrend's finger groove combat grips on it. It is the most well balanced and lightest recoiling .357 I've ever owned. Two things that stood out immediately to me. First, the smooth trigger pull, in both DA and SA. In SA, it's like a set trigger, in DA, it's so smooth, you almost never need SA. I like to dry fire just to amaze myself at the smoothness; I wish all DA revolvers I've ever owned were that slick. Secondly, it has to be the most accurate fixed sight handgun I've ever owned whether I fire .38 spl or .357 magnum. I plan to keep this one, and for good. I love old S&Ws also, but this 619 has me sold. Too bad S&W quit making it and the 620. It made a great modern day L-Frame equivalent of the 65/66. For those that don't like the two-piece barrels, too bad; there's a 620 owner on the boards that will agree with me about the accuracy with these revolvers, and his experience is much more extensive than mine. To me, there is nothing wrong with the way my little 619 looks, but of course, YMMV:




And by the way, here in Germany, when transporting weapons, they must be locked. The IL is actually a bonus for over here, and one never knows, it could be this way in the US one day. I don't have a problem with it, and actually kind of like it; I just don't get how it messes up the "beauty" of the weapon. You may as well just say the cylinder release does to and why doesn't S&W use the system like Ruger or Dan Wesson. I don't like ejector shrouds, but I wouldn't ever claim they should be removed. When I bought this 619, I purposely tried to induce a malfunction by locking and unlocking the device between firing, loading, etc. I can see plenty of function and use for it and like many others have pointed out, if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. I am just not seeing the proof that the new ones are any worse than old one's; weapons manufacturers have always turned out a lemon or two, just name a model or date. Overall, I find this "new" S&W to be excellent, enough that I will definately be keeping this 619 since it seems it may be a bit of a rarity one day (I have always liked the semi-lug HB look like the old K-Frames, 10,13,64,65, etc) and it doesn't seem S&W has any plan to make another L-Frame quite like it. 686s are great revolvers, but seem sort of new age and common to me; I like the old look in a new design. Wish S&W would make a classics L-Frame line based on designs like this to include carbon blue framed 619/620s. I've got plans for a lot of old models (I really want a 13 with a 3" barrel for instance), but also do for new models, too.

I think Tom has made a good buy, and some good comments. The IL/MIM thing is just a dead issue; if the purists ran the world, we wouldn't have had a lot of great innovations. In fact you might not have ever heard of John Browning (and FN almost stole him away for good due to the "purists" in the US at the time) were it not for the acceptance of new ideas, and how to put them to use.