Ted, I've got a Canon EOS 60D with 18-200 zoom that takes great pictures, but more and more I'm finding that it's simply too big to lug around comfortably. Unless you're into creative photography, where you're going to be really USING the features of the camera, aperture priority, shutter priority, timed exposures, etc, etc, and carrying around different lenses and accessories a point & shoot camera is more than enough, and the beauty of them is that many of them are small enough to drop in a pocket and forget about. Especially when traveling by air taking the big, bulky SLR is a pain - don't want to put it in a checked bag as it might disappear, or get trashed when the bag gets launched into the hold and it takes up a lot of room if you're trying to go carry-on only.

My "other" camera is a SONY Cyber-shot. I generally keep it set at a 4:3 ratio, VGA resolution which works for e-mails and posting on the forum without any image reduction, and unless you're going to edit your images to bring out a lug-nut to 8x10 it works just fine. Mine is several years old, only 12.2MP, and the one they're selling today at Costco for $650 is 20.2MP, so you can do the lug-nut to poster size shots if you want to, you just don't normally NEED that resolution. Another good one in that same size is the NIKON CoolPix S6900 at 16MP for less than $200. Just my $0.02, and I'm not a pro either....