It was over 6 years ago when I purchased my Canon 20D. This was a ground breaking camera that hit a price point, a perfect mega-pixel count and a quality in picture production that set a new standard and was considered to rival the full professional 1D range.
Since then the camera market has gone head to head, pixel counts have stabilised and noise has been all but eliminated. While I did hear a professional photographer once ask why you would want a 6400 ISO setting (let alone 64000) when 800 at f2.8 is the fastest you really need.
OK so I hung out for a while and bypassed the 30,40,50 and 60 as nothing really grabbed me functionally. Then finally Canon release the 7D and it looked like the perfect upgrade - targeted specifically at the same market that snapped up the 20D when it was released.
Now we have the rumours on the 5D mkIII. OK, one camera is a little more expensive than the other but the picture quality is near perfect, fps rates are high, noise is at an all time low. The camera rumors at 26mp, DigicV, 5fps, HiRes LCD. Canon has already caught up with Nikon on the in camera remote flash control.
All the improvements in cameras now are about new technology and new gimmicks but in reality the in camera picture quality has surely reached a boundary. I did some of my early training in the 80's on videography but my passion remains in still photography.
So I will continue to purchase upgrades as the cameras die their technological deaths.
But on picture quality, resolution and capability for still photography - is there really anywhere else to go ?