Ergonomically, it's ideal for me. My hands aren't large and I've found some cameras difficult to use for that reason. The S5000 has all of the controls in the right places for my taste at least. I'd not necessarily change anything but, rather, add a few things. I'd do away with the "movie" portion of the camera since I have no interest in using it. Maybe free up "space" for other features that way. The 2nd thing I'd add would be to give it a higher megapixel count. I like really large prints when I print the images and find that the 6 megapixel equivalant of the S5000 isn't high enough sometimes unless I run it through a filter to smooth things out. The big thing I'd like to see is better white balance control. The falls shots are a good example of this aspect. The original images have very blue tinted water in them and doesn't look natural to me. I postworked them in PSP 8 to get rid of that blue tint. Not a show stopper but it would be nice to have something besides the "pre-sets" the camera comes with now.

As for having children quickly...believe me you won't be saving money that way! lol I have to admit though that all of the kids have always been my biggest fans. :-) (Either that or out the door! lol)

Let me know if you get the S5000! We can trade "war stories" about it. I like that kind of back and forth because I always pick up new ways of taking advantage of the features of the camera!

Gene