that why is there is the advice of never taking out your camera immediately when moving from a cold to hot place or vice versa.
same applies for items made of wood like snooker cues or guitars.
leave it in the bag / case for at least 10mins for it to settle down then only take out.

for point n shoot its what you dont see that may kill it, who knows moisture may have formed in the circuit board inside the camera?

1. RAW gives you more flexibility during post processing. I can less worry about white balance and later on can further define what WB I want during PP

2. Can try The Gimp

Meh, f/2.8 also sharp.

I don't know, but to me usually if I were to go to that extreme of having f/11 or above, I would usually be shooting landscape photography where I want everything to be in focus, and having said that
I would be shooting outdoors during daytime and if the sunlight is bright enough, it doesn't necessarily need to have a slower shutter speed since there are plenty of light available.

Maybe, if you're shooting during night-time, you would want to use a slower shutter speed, maybe longer to collect more lights. But I rarely shoot at very small apertures during night time outdoors, Can't comment much on this. Small aperture maybe bump ISO? or fire up 150 flashguns at night like Joe McNally?

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Added on February 4, 2011, 10:39 pm

I would definitely shoot RAW if I couldn't take control of the lighting condition and when the event venue has very funny light colors all over the place indoors. Something which I cannot avoid whether I love it or hate it. That at least gives me a chance to fix the WB during PP. Again, it's pretty subjective on whether warmer tone is better or cooler tone is better, so I usually just go for Auto WB, and shoot RAW all the way. Especially during weddings, when I really cannot compromise with the shots, so shooting RAW is the way to go!