Interesting comments, guys, and thank you. I'm v. much a 'happy snaps' photographer, so for me, anything but a basic point and shoot facility is wasted. I occasionally have to take photos for publication/teaching purposes, but they're pretty much providing photographic evidence rather than being aesthetic [to explain - I occasionally need to take photos of people with unusual postures through brain damage, but so long as the picture is balanced, quality isn't a big deal, and reasonable jpegs are fine - at least the publisher and students have never complained
]. I'll use the G7 for this as it's better than my (latest model) Cybershot for picture quality, but for most vacation snaps I'll probably stick with the Cybershot as it's far more portable.
Sorry to sound a complete heathen. I can sense the body of my late uncle turning in his grave - he was a lighting designer and professional photographer and I suspect he wouldn't like the thought of his only nephew being so blase about photography.