Canon G9 / G10 dust problem

A quick word of warning to anyone thinking of buying a Canon g9 or g10 compact - DUST!

I've had a g9 for a little over a year, and while I can live with it's inability to shoot moving subjects, the noisy little sensor and fiddly-diddly menus (hey, what would you expect from a point and shoot? It's not a d3, after all...), the one thing that would put me off buying anything similar is the rubbish lens design. Surely with all their experience, Canon could come up with something that doesn't suck in dust and dirt and ruin every picture you take thereafter? Here's a pic of my studio wall at f8. That's the entire frame, btw, not a crop. There's a snake in there. 

 It took a couple of weeks and the cost of postage to an authorised repairer to have it removed (the snake's doing well in Bristol Zoo). 

Update - I dunno, griping again, but they coulda thought a bit harder about the lens cover mechanism (the shutter that goes across the lens to protect it when you turn off the camera and the lens retracts) - it's pretty easy to get some grit in between the blades, which doesn't stop the lens retracting, but it does stop the cover closing. The front element now has two deep scratches where it bounced around in my pocket with the cover open, and every picture shows these two foggy patches. If it wasn't goosed before, it sure is now.