I agree. The SR-12 low light shots I used in a travel doc a year or so ago look completely unacceptable now.
Here's a short video from footage I shot with the XDCam EX1- three 1/2" CMOS chips, 7 lbs of camera.
Ironman 2009
The first 1-2 minutes and the last couple of minutes have several low light/night shots. They don't really look hugely better than what the tiny XR520 seems capable of, at least at the level of web distribution.

I am very happy with my SR11. I took this whole video with only headlights and campfires to light the night... When I showed the clips to people at the dunes they were amazed at how much it picks up. Dumont at Night is one of the trickiest things to pick up with video. Most just turn out looking like headlights passing in the night.


Next time I go out I will make sure to get some EX3 video for comparison. I have some online but it was using ultra slo shutter and wouldn't be fair. I find the biggest difference between the EX and the smaller camera is the EX will look HD in nearly any lighting while the SR11 for example looks more standard definition as the light starts to go away. Still very nice though!

I have other night video of the EX but there are street lights so again not really fair.