I didn't shoot any progressive material but I will next week.

There is an Import and browser plugin that can covert to MXF and allows import into Premiere and edius as well as new FCP transfer software.

As far as I can tell the fan circulates air around a heatsink, I don't think dust can actually get inside the camera, but I will take another look at this. The full size XDCAMs have a very complex ventilation and fan system and I film in really bad conditions but have not had any issues with moisture or dust getting in.

seeing a progressive frame will be interesting. I was going to complain about how underwhelmed I am with the lack of detail in the train frame, but then I read Alister's comment on the site that says "The grab was created by transferring the EX footage to XDCAM HD via HD-SDi, so it has been down sampled from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080, then copied via HD-SDi from the EX1 to a XDCAM HD deck, re compressed as a 35Mb XDCAM HD clip then exported from FCP." So, looks to have gone through a bit of processing... :-)

Any chance of posting (or pointing to a post of) a full 1920x1080 frame?

My understanding on the XDCAM's is that the fans are no louder than the noise from someone breathing on set.

Your wish is my command... see http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=104053