I'm not sure I like this form factor in a camera (let alone one for new imaging). It's very prone to rotations, the screen size is too small for interactions/focus-views, the design is not all too appealing.
I think the form factor was by far the best design decision they made. Bringing one to a party will be a guaranteed conversation starter, vastly more so than if it took a traditional digicam format.
Perhaps not on the grey one, but the other two are blazed hues of anodized aluminum.
Sure, it makes the thing look like a gun. But there's a reason guns have pistol grips. They work well for the intended application. They're functional.
Without any kind of grip, this thing is an awkward tube that takes pictures. Perhaps it could work as a spyglass, but because of the touch screen you can't raise it directly to your eye. So you have to fumble it between two hands trying to aim and shoot. Have you ever tried to point a 10ft. pole at something with just two hands? It's very difficult. I'm envisioning the same difficulty trying to take a picture with any level of zoom on this thing.
Note that it does have the shutter button on top, so that should help the user orient it correctly.
Also I don't think a big screen is that necessary on a camera like this, it's uses seem pretty minimal, it's essentially only used as a viewfinder as any other adjustments to the image—focus included—are done in software.
Still has the cool factor.