Here are my thoughts so far on the XF 16mm f/2.8 lens from Fujifilm. I loved having the ability to capture the large building across the street since 16mm was plenty wide for the whole scene. 23mm on an APSC sensor is often not quite wide enough for larger buildings and 18mm can be pretty tight while typically being able to capture all but the largest buildings.
On the other hand, shooting pictures of people made me feel that 16mm was quite far away. You can "zoom with your legs" but that will not get you to the right place in time to capture the scene that you notice as it unfolds quickly with people walking by. This means that for almost all of the photos I shared above, I did significant cropping to get the image that I actually wanted. I don't typically do a lot of cropping since I try to capture the field of view that I intended when I shoot. This is an argument for a zoom lens like the XF 16-55mm f/2.8 but there is still a place in the kit for something more compact that it is easier to store and carry on the go.
The size and weight of the XF 16mm f/2.8, along with the quality metal construction, make this a compelling lens to work with. I love how the "Fujicron" f/2 and 2.8 lenses look with their tapered barrels to make room for the optical viewfinders to see past them. The shorter lenses like this one and the XF 35mm f/2 are the best fit on the cameras, in my opinion. Although I can live without the extra stop at 2.8 in order to get a lighter lens, I still wish that Fujifilm would have just done this for the 18mm focal length instead. If so, this lens would be an absolute no-brainer for me.
Since this one is 16mm, however, it seems that my decision is either (1) to use the wider compact prime at 16mm that is future-proofed for Fujifilm's higher megapixel sensors and just to crop as needed, (2) to bump up to the much larger and more expensive but highly acclaimed 18mm f/1.4, sacrificing compactness for quality, or (3) to pick the wonderfully sized 18mm f/2 despite it's focusing issues, age and lesser image quality. The only other option might be to use the WCL-X100 on the X100 series instead to gain the 18mm field of view but with a fairly compact setup. I'll keep shooting with this XF 16mm f/2.8 for a few weeks and see if it grows on me or if I need to explore one of the other options.