(photography) how did I choose what digital camera to buy?

[P: this is for you. Until now, everyone who asked got this file by email, but now that I have this site, I figure I just paste it in here so I have a URL to send instead of the file. You're already the 6th guy asking me for this info so this will reduce my "support costs" :-)]

Note to all: this post has lots of <pre> text, and is completely useless on blogspot. Go look for it on my real blog, link somewhere on the left...