I've lurked on and off over the years, but have only registered just today.

Back in the day I had a Minolta X-570 with a couple lenses. I thought it was a great camera. Since then I've had other priorities and have been using a serious of point and shoots. I've recently had a renewed interest in photography so I've decided to get back into an SLR. Some features that are important to me are low light performance, focus speed, and lens quality (not just build quality, but optical quality).

I've been looking at the D5000, EOS 500D and the K-x. I had the opportunity to handle the Nikon and Canon in a store and the first thing that struck me is how plasticy everything is now. The Nikon I think was slightly better. My Minolta felt like a rock compared to these new cameras.

I haven't had the chance to look at K-x in person. Everybody seems to rave about it, but I hear there's no focus indicators in the viewfinder. To me that seems like a huge problem???

When I had my Minolta the deciding factor on a camera line was it's optics. I've been out of the loop for 20+ years. Is Nikon still the best?

Any other suggestions I should look at?

Thanks