I dive/surf mostly in Washington & Oregon, which requires fairly heavy gloves wet or dry and was concerned about the size/spacing of the buttons on the back of the camera. I don't expect to be messing with the menu options much while I'm in the water, but I will want to take advantage of the video option off & on. Should I need to use any of these buttons while in the water, what level of difficulty am I looking at when trying to push a specific button? aside from the waves. =)
Thank You for any input.
Gloves and especially heavy ones can be a problem especially with the small consumer cameras and the small housings for them.
Since you wrote that you need some functionality more then others I suggest you try (even on dry) the housing you find suit to you with your gloves to see if you can operate the controls you need.
My wife use her Canon WP-DC 300 housing with globes without problems but her gloves are not the heavy ones.