a real nice and elegant font that is quite "avenir-ish" to me (of course it's not avenir). b and g remind of dax. any ideas?

it reminds me of both Foundry Form Sans and DTL Argo but neither seems exact...
You were on the right track, Meta. It's actually Foundry Sterling.
http://www.foundrytypes.co.uk/
Never would have spotted it without your clues, Meta.
Both Bliss (my first thought) and Sterling flaunt their Britishness: David Quay describes Sterling as an attempt to create a "modern sans serif typeface that has a quintessentially English feel," while Jeremy Tankard says, "In developing Bliss, forms were chosen for their simplicity, legibility and
Captured from web.archive.org on 26 Jun 2008. view this capture