I have a 70-200 VR II and other groups have discussion on flaws with the lens, such as dust inside or flakes, irregular paint or casting surfaces and damaged threads.
I carefully examined my lens, as did two friends who also own it. ZERO dust. It looks like mine was vacuumed out! No flakes and surfaces are evenly colored with no flaking. Threads are also perfect. I used a very bright LED flashlight and carefully examined my lens on an off the camera. It has NONE of the flaws, nor does mine rattle or make virtually ANY noise when attached to the D700. You have to strain to hear VR operate at all.
I believe that the issues are for a bad batch of lenses, since no other copy I've seen has these problems. No big deal. Just wait a bit and order. It's a spectacular lens for 90% of what I used the old one for and I'm glad I own it. As I stated before, my sample is sharper than the 200mm Micro, Tamron 180 DI and 80-200 2.8 AF-D WIDE OPEN.
A few new samples here....
http://GhostLight.zenfolio.com/p953480034/slideshow
This is not to minimize people who have had issues. They are quite obviously for real. I'm just saying that this is not some sudden dropping of the ball by Nikon; just a wrinkle in a new product.
Cheers!
