The jpgs. from the Sony A77 have rightly been described as being somewhat "ordinary" and certainly the raw files offer the opportunity to get a lot more from an image. Below is a workflow comparison between raw and jpg.
Firstly the out of camera jpg. and a 100% blowup.
For the raw file, these are the settings I'm currently using to process A77 files in Adobe Camera Raw / Photoshop.
For this picture I slightly increased the contrast in curves.
This picture needed a slight adjustment for the sky which was a little too cyan for my tastes.
Looking at a 100% blowup again, the file is "punchier" and is sharper with more definition.
It must be remembered however that I'm creating a file here for the
picture library sites that I supply. The image is processed in this way
for print reproduction.