Referendum to change the voting system...

The UK this week went to vote on a referendum of whether to change the long standing first past the post to "Alternative Vote".

Maybe a glossary would be helpful:
First Past The Post (FPTP): whoever gets the most vote wins i.e. in an extreme scenario with 100 candidates, if one candidate gets 2% of the vote and the rest 1% he wins.  In the UK the winning candidate normally gets between 30% and 50% of the vote.
Alternative Vote (AV): Vote for candidates in order, with each candidate with the lowest votes eliminated, the votes from that eliminated candidate are reassigned to the remaining candidates.  This process continues until you are left with one winning candidate - simple...
Proportional Representation (RP): The number of candidates for each party is dependant upon the total share of votes that they receive.

I'd love to know people's views of which is the best voting system.

The UK press made much of the fact that only three countries use the AV vote: Australia, Papua New Guinea and another small country.  Many use first past the post with a few more using a combination of proportional representation and first past the post.

What did the discerning UK voters say? - no change please - 60% voted to keep FPTP.  With only 40% of the UK voting in any event, I'm not sure what the big issue with democracy is!  Well maybe with the resurgence in support of the Royal family, following the big wedding between Willy and Kate, the next step will be to have a vote on the return of an absolute monarchy (don't more countries have this system than AV) but I 'm not sure yet.