Why do people never suggest the panasonic FZ28
I would have strongly suggested it, had I seen this thread earlier.
I have one, as a casual cam for the days when i don't feel like lugging my dslr and all it's lenses around.
The FZ28 is an excellent P&S cam, which is loads of fun to use. It has a very useful HD (1280x720p) video recording function too..although max individual segment length is 8 min. The best thing about the FZ28 is the lens;
it's a high quality lens, and shows excellent optical characteristics across nearly it's entire zoom range 27-486mm (18x). There is a decent degree of manual control available too, although, obviously not as much as in a dslr.
FZ28 = highly recommended.