Finally made a decison and settled on the Panasonic DMC-TZ3 and ordered it from NewEgg.com. Went with the Silver Model as it is $30 cheaper than the Black Model. Other cameras I’d consider were the Canon G7 and the Ricoh R6. The Canon beside various auto-modes also allows almost complete manual control, but is almost $200 more. The Ricoh R6 is comparable to the Panasonic, but is only available from one vendor in North America (it’s widely available in Europe & Japan), and is about $70 more than the Panasonic.

A review of the Panasonic DMC-TZ3:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/panasonic/dmc_tz3-review/

And a comparison with the Canon G7 that I had also considered: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1033&thread=22633538

The Canon G7 is $500 vs ~$300 for the TZ3. Looks like the Panasonic takes comparable pictures, whereas the Canon allows one to use more, much more manual settings, looks really cool, is a bit bigger …