I confess my friends muscles are getting quite big lugging the Canon about

Mind you, it does take a nice image as I guess all modern dslr's do. I'm reasonably sure the e520 punches above its weight but comparing it to the D40? It could be a bit of a David v Goliath chaps!

I think we should try some online betting. At what point do you think that the light weight, the superb dynamic range and image quality, and the excellent lens's (and not forgetting the excellent price!) of the e520 will be forgotten because a test image taken at ISO1600 that has been magnified 200x has found a few pixels that are a shade of grey instead of black? Probably being a bit cynical