Off the main topic for a moment, I'm in the Canon camp but only because the camera I decided I wanted (5D) happened to be made by them. 6 months later I would have bought a Nikon instead, as they then had a camera that met my purposes better.
But it is a source of constant amazement to me that with hardware that is at least as good as Nikon's and certainly more advanced (all the technological developments for years have come from Canon, with Nikon following suit and perfecting it), Canon keep scoring own goals with their firmware. Autofocussing, HDR bracketing, auto-ISO, metering generally, are better with Nikon than with Canon. Yet these can be remedied by a programmer in a back room somewhere, with no changes to the hardware at all. Canons seem to be designed for photographic engineers, Nikon for end users.