I’ve had a Nikon 5700 digicam for a couple years now and it’s served me well. All the same, it’s been getting on my nerves a bit recently as I've been pushing its limits — my current gripe is that there's no way to disable the internal flash while leaving an external flash enabled.
And, while reading Ask MetaFilter, I came across an analogy from kcm which was able to nicely summarize my perspective on the camera:
I was never happy with the prosumer choices like the S2 (I had the PowerShot G2 and G3). Not enough control to justify the size. It’s like driving a PT Cruiser because you need to haul stuff for construction projects but you want a small car to autocross: it sucks for both. […]
Now, I don’t think my Nikon 5700 sucks, but I have been keeping an eye out for an upgrade. The hard part is where to go from there, which kcm comments on as well:
If you DO go for a DSLR, be prepared to have two cameras — one to slip in a pocket, like your Elph, and the DSLR, which is generally too bulky for events where your primary concern is not photography.[…]
So maybe that would be a workable long-term strategy (buying both a compact digicam & a DSLR). The predicament I have now, though, is that I can't afford both of those :-/. Decisions, decisions…