I made the mistake of getting a Nikon D90 before I knew jack about proper photography. It took great pictures but I knew I wasn't using it to its potential, plus I found it was just too big for me when traveling.
Now that I sold the D90, I think I'm going to try it incrementally - the newly announced Olympus E-PL1 looks to be the camera for me - about the size of a large compact camera, near-DSLR image quality, interchangeable lenses, etc. The Live Guide feature is the one that I think will help me learn the manual adjustments and the consequences of these adjustments before I take the shot - cool stuff.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188387/olym...ole_family.html

 

That's why you have two cameras.

 

Wow, thanks for all the advice guys. I'm going to go to Future Shop this weekend and check out the models available and I'll keep you posted with the outcome.