let me know if anyone manages to get the lens at 1200 from John 3:16 as i have serious doubts about that quote.
when i was shopping for a copy of the lens, John 3:16 was one of the first shops i went to, and one of the staff quoted me 1.5k for the hsm sigma 24-70, and stated they had no stock and have to order from Sigma. The very friendly boss then came along and said no no, the lens is 1.2k....but....i recommend u to buy the older version, and kept trying to sell me the virtues of the older one claiming the new version is no different apart from HSM. At this point, the original staff talking to me looked genuinely stunned and actually questioned and said he don't think its that cheap!
from my research at all the shops, even MS color, where florence did not have the stock, she called the sigma distributor and then informed me she can let me have the lens at $1475.
This lens goes for £799 in the UK, i really doubt that John 3:16 can get special treatment from sigma to be able to sell it at 1200. More likely than not he will say "no stock, buy the older version, much more worth the $$".