Ducktapeguy,
I liked your itemized thoughts on digicams but I have to disagree with the zoom. You're right, when considering zoom, consider ONLY the optical zoom and forget the digital. However, disregarding more than 3x optical is unecessary. In fact, choosing the absolute highlest level of optical zoom is the way to go.

In Ironraven's situation, where he wants to (among other things) take photos of his adventures, I can forsee nature shots where you can;t get very close to an animal but want the closest "close-up". This is where your zoom (optical) comes in handy. The higher the level of optical zoom, generally speaking, the better the quality of the camera's optics.

Where I work, many years ago (1999) we bought several Sony Mavicas with 14x optical zoom. These were the cameras that wrote to a 3.5 floppy and could be transferred to your computer via the floppy drive. They worked flawlessly at first, but as the years went by, the number of failures to read ffrom the disks got to the point where nobody wanted to use them anymore. However, we needed the zoom capability. Now, 14x is NOT a large zoom factor, but it was better than most on the market at the time. A 3x zoom is, in my opinion, next to worthless.

Another thing to consider are the digi-cams with the SLR 35mm interchangeable lens cameras. That may be the Nikkons discussed earlier, I don;t know. But the benefit is in the interchangeable lenses, and most will take your old 35mm SLR lenses so you don;t have to buy so many. They're expensive, but they give you the broadest range of options available. Definitely NOT for the beginner (or for my modest abilities either), I just mention them so you know they're out there.

Some posters said to compare the cameras side-by-side and I think that's good. WalMart is a good place to start. Their digi-cam section is pretty fair.