Does anyone here use this combo—and does the flash housing limit shift? And (I could not find a reference here to the D700 in the reviews) does the D700 allow auto aperture control (the specs say only D3 and D300). Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere. TIA, kl

This is probably best posted in the Nikon board, but the answer to your second question is yes the D700 does allow auto aperture control.

Also, I believe the flash housing does not impede shift, but if you have shifted the lens up it might impede rotation while shifted. You'd have to clear this up though since I'm not totally sure.