I'll be sad to see the A700 go :(
I have one and it's been serving me very well indeed...
Oh well, I hope the replacement will come soon and have useful features.
I chanced upon this website which, imho, has pretty useful info on posing for classical portrait photography.
http://jzportraits.home.att.net
Hope you find it useful...
try this:
Press the MENU button.
Use "joystick" scroll sideways to Custom Menu 2
Scroll down to last item "Release w/o Lens"
Scroll right and set it to "Enable"
Hope that works...