Could you guys get off the bickering and stick to the point of the post. "It's not whatcha got, it's what you do with whatcha got." Besides the OP said, the camera decision is for a trip with her hubby, not shooting the Olympics!
I believe you are missing the point —or maybe you didn't follow the discussion, so let me summarize it for you again:
First, the OP related how the sales guy did this: "After showing me the Canon gear....he asked if I wanted to see the BEST......the Sony".
This statement, spelled out as it was, prompted me to react and comment on the fact that, if the sales guy had indeed said that, it was very strange and signaled an obvious commercial (and not technical) interest. Therefore, I meant to underline that the sales guy's statement was possibly not in the best interest of the OP. To avoid reactions such as the one you've just had, I took care to specify that I was not a Canon user, nor a Sony user, and that therefore I couldn't be suspected of "defending" either brand. Not knowing how knowledgeable the OP was as regards brands of photographic equipment, I invited her to verify that most (if not all) professional photographers use Nikon or Canon equipment in the field, just to make her understand that Sony could simply not be called "the BEST" without some very wild exaggeration.
Then, the OP went back on her earlier message and qualified her previous statement. She said:
"I should have qualified the statement that 'Sony was the best.' It was taking into consideration my wanting to carry as little weight as possible, capturing images with better quality than what I have and traveling with a single lens camera. The statement was not meant to say that Sony was the best but maybe for my particular situation it could really fulfill my needs."That was, of course, quite acceptable and made sense (although Sony would certainly not be
my choice if I wanted a light photo kit for traveling), therefore I did not further comment.
Then, "hogloff" stepped in and rekindled the discussion (that, I thought, had otherwise come to an end) with a statement which I thought was really not very serious nor sensible. I did not want to really call it the way I saw it (that would have led to "bickering"), therefore I chose to resort to a brief humorous statement to let them know that I didn't think that what they said was very likely.
In conclusion, I believe that, as far as I am concerned, the accusation of "bickering" is not justified, and your message was uncalled for. I hope that now, we can indeed leave it at that.