Even in Kyoto

Ideally, I'd wind up with a smartphone with a non-obnoxious camera that provides some degree of manual control, reasonable image quality, and adequate macro photos.

Both Nokia and Samsung make cameraphones. Those are likely to be your best bets for control and image quality. I know little more about them, since I have a couple of iFoos and Way Too Much camera stuff.

You might be able to find shock-reducing cases for cameraphones that will make them less sensitive to being dropped. The basic problem for anything camera-like is that the fancier the optics, the more stuff in them can get busted (knocked out of alignment) by impact.