going with the easy answer

A good kit doesn't come much more simple than this: three talented zooms covering 10-300mm.

For ultimate image quality the kit should have more primes, faster glass - and 24Mpix or greater camera to make best use of them.  For the amount of shooting that I do right now and in the near future, such investments make no sense - and today's Pentax primes are not weather resistant.  The 10-17 can focus to point-blank range, capture anything I want to shoot and its fishiness is great fun; sadly it's not foul-weather friendly like the other two lenses.  The venerable 18-55 DAL WR has really never let me down; its markdown features like distortion at 18mm certainly are irrelevant compared to the fisheye at 17mm, and the red kit lens also gives me 1/3 lifesize images.  These two lightweights will keep the rather bulky 16-85mm zoom out of my bag.. for a while, at least! Hmmm, I'd save 50 grams in the bag, lose $250 in the wallet and 10-16mm coverage, and an occasional lens change.  Nope, not for a while.  If anything would prove more convenient it might be the new 18-50RE, with its silent focus and 58mm filters that match the HD55-300.  The new red-ring HD is the newest version of the best Pentax-fit telezoom in its price range, and none speak ill of it other than its leisurely speed to focus.

These are not my only lenses; the 50mm f/1.7 A can be useful when light fails, the 300mm mirror lens is small and creates unique images and the manual zooms are fun at times.  In general though, for what I shoot (and how seldom I print big) the three AF zooms can handle anything that I need a camera to manage.  The K50's higher ISO abilities make faster glass less crucial (and only the 150-450mm beast is WR) so the balance of bulk and image quality is just right for me.

The 100-300 Sigma DL now can keep the NX adapter mounted and become the unstabilized NX300 telezoom for a while, where its old-school aperture ring will be useful. I've never tried keeping both the 100-300 and 55-300 before; it's nice to have them both yet not crowding each other!

a rough day ends OK

The last 24 hours were not comfortable.  Stomach troubles, ringing in my ears - and a dead camera.
Fortunately the camera was resurrected today!  I'll just let the story repeat here:

I've installed many firmware updates on many cameras without issue, even with SD cards half-full of pictures.  Maybe I'll remember this event and be more careful in the future: empty cards with one update at a time installed on them, use a truly fully-charged battery (which always seems silly for a 3-minute process.. until it isn't) and more diligence so that later I don't ask myself "did I really see that last screen appear that said it was done?".

So now we have two NX300 bodies, two NX lenses and a PK-NX adapter.  My wife will get the first like-new body that came with the 20-50 zoom but she can have the 16-50PZ; I will use the not-dead-yet one with the 20-50 and we can fight over the adapter.  In truth she isn't ready to play yet so really  it's all mine!!! :^)

Now if I can just stop the ringing & enjoy some food..

attempting a slow-but-steady path

For once my new-years imaging resolution is to use the same cameras throughout 2016! 
If that comes true it might be the hardest thing I've ever done.. not quite, but very true photographically.  Since 2010 I've switched cameras/bodies at least fifteen times - several were due to finances but many were just frivolous adventures.  Finances have stabilized now so it's time to become a photographer again for my main hobby, instead of gear-swapper! 

After the quick and over-eager attempt to make mic4:3 my system of choice, I found the drain in funds to be alarming. Even with great bargains the adventure was becoming a large cash drain.  After more thinking and less rationalizing I returned the camera and sold off a couple of lenses. . and prepared to restore my Pentax collection, which had not quite vanished.

 A 'used' red Pentax  K-50 + 18-55wr kit and a 'like new' HD55-300wr lens arrived soon after - in the K-50 case 'used' meant a shutter count of TWO including the one I took to check the shutter count!  Neither 18-55 nor 55-300 has ever let me down in a way I could attribute to them, and both are weather ready but with greater range than my previous kit. 

I've also picked up a bargain 10-17mm fisheye for max versatility in K mount.  The fisheye zoom has often interested but never joined me; until now I've been a prime ultrawide user, having tried the DA15 and both Sigma 15mm and classic Pentax SMC 17mm fisheyes.  Oh I did have the F 17-28 fisheye briefly, come to think of it.

So I'm set at 10-300mm, and weather resistant above 17mm.
I've never had such a full focal-length range at my disposal!

On the small side of things, I've reverted to Samsung's NX300 rather than going micro4:3. The nx500 has pushed this model aside with its newfangled sensor and 4k video, but my time with the 300 last year left me quite impressed.  The one is white, and will be for my wife; I will add a darker one for myself later.¹ In the meantime I'll be thoroughly testing it out for her with shots like the K50 image above, and hopefully a few more creative offerings. It's been a while since I used a date-stamp camera - more precisely I did not know my previous NX300 had that feature!

I also snatched up a bargain copy of the well-liked 16-50 with OIS for it, so the kit is really small and image stabilized! It boasts a talented 20Mpx APSc sensor and many cool features that I managed to pick up quickly (unlike the G7, sadly).  The white 20-50mm lens came with the camera; it gets fine reviews but its lack of IS makes it less useful compared to the smaller, wider 16-50.  This bargain copy came in black but is available in white; assuming my wife likes this camera, the black lens will be mine & a white 16-50 will come soon for hers!

We'll have no native NX telephoto option right now - but telephoto isn't a good fit anyway for a kit that's buile to be tiny; a PK>NX adapter will do for non-stabilized telephoto shots with good light and/or a tripod.  Maybe later we shall do something about this - but Samsung has implied by its silence that its NX lineup is being phased out, so maybe not?

  I suppose my Q should be worried; the nx is a bit larger but the sensor difference is massive.

¹stay tuned - I found a second white body at an even better sub-$200 price, plus something to make them distinctive :^)  If I can pull this off my wife will be quite impressed with her anniversary gift!