workaholic, you've gotten some really sound advice here.
Think of cameras sort of like cars, cell phone providers, rival sports teams, etc. There will be lots of fighting and name calling, but it basically comes down to personal preference. Dispite long years of tension and competition many photographers have gotten over the Nikon vs Camera debate and as you can see in this thread we like to have a little fun with it.
Which is better, Canon or Nikon? Well, that can't really be answered as each, as a whole, are better at certain things and then within the brand certain bodies perform better than others.
Three brands that I stand by are Nikon, Canon, and Olympus. I have three Nikon DSLRs, one ancient Canon film SLR (shhhh, that's a secret!!), a canon video camera, and I'm on my third Olympus point and shoot (the first was stolen, the second was given to a friend).
An SLR is a big investment because after you buy the body you have to look at what lens(es) you want or need. Then, you get into accesories, like filters, speedlites, specialty lenses, etc. Getting a point and shoot with M/S/A (manual/shutter/aperature) modes is a great way to see a) how comfortable you are outside of preset modes b) how often you'll really use non-preset modes c) what limits you can live with with your camera and d) what expectations you have for your camera.
Another small hit on the subject of pixels, sometimes bigger isn't better. It's already been mentioned that unless you're planning to do some severe cropping or huge prints you can't tell a dig difference in MP. I've gotten terrific 8x10s out of 8 year old 2mp point and shoot. However, when you get to the bigger MP cameras you can see YOUR imperfections more clearly. Many inexperienced photographers believe that entry level cameras take better pictures because when they jump up to a higher MP camera without the know-how they can't get the same results they were getting with the basic camera.