camera update
It turns out the battery door was something of a red herring with my A80's problems. As always, it is slightly more strange. The camera only will turn on again if you let it sit for about 60 seconds. If you push the power button before those 60 seconds are up, the camera will not turn on /and/ you have to wait an additional 60 seconds before it will. It's almost as if there's a timer that's preventing the camera from starting, so perhaps it's a capacitor that needs to discharge?
So while I thought the battery door opening/closing was the fix, actually, I was just doing it in such a way that 60 seconds or so elapsed before I tried to turn it on again. Those times that the battery door trick did not work were when I beat the clock, as it were.
Anyway, I figured that if I just don't turn the camera off, I can use it for a while. So yesterday this is what I ended up doing: when I wasn't taking a photo I put the camera in review mode and moved the zoom back and forth (which just zooms in and out of the last photo shot) in order to keep the camera awake. That way I could flip from review to record and the camera would be ready. That is, until the batteries were exhausted (which didn't happen)
All this means, of course, is that I have a serious and hard-core addiction to both photography and this camera. I think I need help. 
