Discontinued cameras worth looking for

[PSA DC-9-30]

Do you consider any discontinued digital cameras to be as good as, or better than their more up-to-date siblings? Are you on the lookout for these on the second-hand market? In my case, I have been reading some of the Olympus forums and  Wrotniak's site, and I have become intrigued by the Olympus C-7070, which apparently was Olympus' last attempt at a high quality compact camera (i.e., that might be of use to serious amateurs and even pros). It had a magnesium alloy body, full manual controls, offered raw (as well as .tif, and .jpg) capture, and used Cf cards--and 7 MP for a camera of this type is more than enough. It had its flaws, as all compacts do, but it seems to be a generally well-thought out design. Do any of you have experience with this particular camera? Given Olympus' reputation for excellent optics, I wonder how it would fare in comparison to the Canon G9, which I'm also considering as a carry-around camera, when I don't want to bother carrying my E-510 and lenses.

[Larry Berman]

Don't forget the Nikon CoolPix 8400 (which makes a great infrared camera) and the 8800. Those are also from that era where the manufacturer's used better materials and a larger sensor. I still used two 8400's, one I've had converted for infrared and the other for family stuff. Magnesium body, 8 megapixels, larger sensor, ED glass. Excellent image quality. Those cameras were an end of the era of great point and shoot cameras.

Do you consider any discontinued digital cameras to be as good as, or better than their more up-to-date siblings? Are you on the lookout for these on the second hand market? In my case, I have been cruising some of the Olympus forums and the Wrotniak site, and I have become intrigued by the Olympus C-7070, which apparently was Olympus' last attempt at a high quality compact camera that might be of use to serious amateurs and even pros looking for a compact, carry-around, vacation camera. It had a magnesium alloy body, full manual controls, offered raw (as well as .tif, and .jpg) capture, and used Cf cards--and 7 MP for a camera of this type is more than enough. It had its flaws, as all compacts do, but it has a certain funkiness that appeals to me as an Olympus fan. Do any of you have experience with this particular camera? Given Zuiko's reputation for excellent optics, I wonder how it would fare in comparison to the Canon G9, which I'm also considering as a carry-around camera, when I don't want to bother carrying my E-510 and lenses.
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[PSA DC-9-30]

Thanks. I think it's too bad that Nikon, Olympus, et al. have conceded the serious compact market to Canon, and to a lesser extent Ricoh and Sigma. Both Nikon and Olympus used to have some very nice rangefinders/small cameras such as the XA and Pen-series, as well as some nice early digital examples, as have been mentioned above.

[Plekto]

My last digital camera (gone back to MF film for now) was a Minolta G600.  This was the last of their compact models and has excellent features.  A very good camera that nobody knew about, because Minolta pretty much packed up their operations at that time and were essentially dead in the water until Sony came along and saved them. Sony of course, dropped the consumer models entirely in favor of theirs, so that was that.  

The best part for me was the under 2 second startup and excellent and well thought out controls.  A better camera than my parents' 6MP Canon.

A few places still sell it new for a pretty reasonable price last I checked.($200 or so)

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/G600/G60A.HTM
A nice review.  It's not a 12MP wonder-compact, but for ~$200 new, it still competes fairly well if you need a small camera.