I think the idea of owning two cameras is the right idea. Own something small and pocketable, so you can have it with you. You can hand it to a waiter at a restaurant and they won't freak out. That sort of thing.

Then, even an entry-level D-SLR is worth owning. You spend less today on a Canon Rebel than you spent back in the day on a Canon G-series camera (I had a G1 and a G3 -- loved the G3).

Megapixels, as you've probably heard, are largely meaningless. I've got 12x18" blowups from my 4-megapixel Canon G3 hanging on the wall and they look great. That said, I'm seriously considering dropping major coin on a Nikon D3, but that's a different discussion.

I'd say that the reason to get a D-SLR is if you intend to start geeking out as a photographer. Any cheap D-SLR, from any vendor, is just so much better than any of the oversized point-and-shoot cameras in terms of image quality, lens quality, autofocus speed, and so forth, with the possible exception of the Sigma DP-1 and a handful of other high-end boxes.

If I was shopping for a high-end non-SLR camera these days, one of the cameras on my short list would be the intriguing Casio EX-F1. At standard six megapixel resolution, it can capture a staggering 60 frames per second. At lower resolutions, it can capture thousands of frames per second. That's pretty damn cool.