Check out
Dave's Picks for some good advice.
My two-cents: look for some nice glass on the front end, Nikon is good and Leica has been fronting some nice Panasonics lately. Don't go so much on the mega-pixel count as more isn't necessarily better; cramming more pixels onto the same size sensor doesn't really translate into better light capturing ability.
This image was taken with a 5 megapixel Sony F717 with a nice Zeiss lens:
This image was taken with a Canon SD1000 with a 7.1 megapixel sensor and a stock Canon lens:
Both reduced via an older version of Adobe's Image Ready and no other manipulation. Not much difference for a 30% bigger sensor is there?
