you guys are awsome so far, ive talked to the sister and she sounded like she really wanted to do it, aka is very excited. which was a good feeler.
after talking with future shop today, and me rolling my eye's when the guy told me the xsi was the exact same as the f1i without video. well ive proved my emotion correct.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos500d/
there is some critical differnce's there to me which are important, the lens reconition sounds nice, as well as the higher iso ( most important ) and beats it pretty much across the board. I'm still on the fence about the 50d as it has the higher frames per second which is a feature I adore, other then that I dont see much in term's of things i see that i like better over the t1i.
as far as the point and shoot goes i have a good one a canon elph 990 IS but I originally learned photography in highschool with slr's and perhaps thats why my camera's keep warming shelve's is because i get frustrated with trying to adjust them.
so all in all its been a productive day, however i still need to look at full package price's as the mikey has mentioned the extra battery, battery grip, lens, maybe a flash, case etc... it sounds like if i go with the tl1 i can skip the card as i already have an 8 gig in my canon elph.