But oh, on the photography side of things . . . In addition to what @buddingphotographer was saying, the fact that there is nothing in the frame that needs to be in focus up close (ie. a flower growing at your feet), then there’s not much difference that aperture would make, even with a DSLR. If you’re focused on something far away, your DOF is going to be much wider than if you were actually focused on something close. High aperture numbers like f/16 or higher are required when you want both foreground and background to be in focus at the same time.
Ditto, thanks for bringing that out @JamesStaddon! Just for the record, if CambridgeinColour’s DOF calculator can be believed, you can focus as close as 2 meters/yards (at just f/4) and still achieve focus all the way out to infinity! So, by stopping down to your maximum of f/11, you can focus as close as .7 meters, and still get everything in focus!
Keep in mind that these are theoretical numbers under optimum conditions. Obviously at f/11 the diffraction will be creating more problems than it’s solving.
Interestingly, there is a discussion going on on Pentaxforums along similar lines: http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/173-general-photography/311553-whats-point-variable-aperture-small-sensor-cameras.html