>
>      1) Companies like Nikon, Olympus, Canon, Minolta, Lecia,
>         Contax, Pentax, Fuji, (Kodak?, Polaroid?) offer products
>         of excellent to good quality manufactur and staff an
>         excellent to good support team with customer friendly
>         policies.
>
>
>      2) Companies like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Casio, Toshiba,
>         Fujitsu, Epson, Kyocera, Ricoh,  and  Sharp, usually
>         offer products engineered to fail rapidly (ie. fair
>         to poor quality) and thier support teams /almost/ always
>         follow a policy set up under the theme: The Company
>         Must Always Profit -- Customer Satisfaction comes second!
>

I am really struggling with the question above.  I am convinced SLR cameras
offer you more options and the more you are willing to pay the better
features you will have.  I have to really come to terms with the issue: Am I
a lazy photographer or am I willing to learn from mistakes and become an
informed photographer.

This is the context where I am looking for an SLR camera that will give me
the best value for the money I am willing to spend.  Your comment is I won't
get that from Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Casio, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Epson,
Kyocera, Ricoh and Sharp.