It took me 6 months, but I finally got my mom into a digital camera. She isn't one to spend $500 w/o doing research, and that's what took the 6 months. She finally bought the Olympus C740UZ w/ the 10x optical. I wouldn't let her buy anything that didn't have 10x optical, as she takes extremely high quality and zoomed pictures of her Irises (sp?). They are all cataloged, and used to be in photo albums, but by next year they will all be on CD (they all don't bloom every year). I am going to be getting the C750UZ some time in the future, or maybe a different one. The Olympus' are great digital cameras, especially w/ the 10x optical... digital zoom is no good, as it pixilates.
Guess what though... . when you buy a new digital camera, plan on buying a new computer too! Am having a custom system built for my mom, as she's filled up her 40 gb HD in less then 5 months with her camera. Also, the 128MB ram doesn't really run Photoshop 7. 0 and AOL and two other programs at the same time!

So now she's getting 1 gb ram, two 120 gb hard drives, and a hyper-threading processor to do it all with.
Take a look at the new Canon digital cams too... they're basically a digital Rebel, and all the lenses that are used on the 35mm's are interchangeable to the digital one... seems like a good idea to me. Plus, I believe it's something like 5 or 6 megapixels.
Josh