It was ages ago that the last comment arrived, but I try to break the silence here

Despite the barber shop wisdom ("the best camera is your own eyes" and "the best is what you can use to express yourself with", etc.) I think it is not about brands and technical details, but ergonomy and personal preferences. When I have to cope with a Nikon it gives me lots of headache, but well, I use Canons since the last decade of the last millennium, and I got the Canon way of handling. Previously I had the heavy and slow, but pretty reliable Zenit SLR, later a Casio (yes, Casio made SLR-s!) and all kinds of pocket and point and shoot things. My first film-eating EOS was a strange feeling, it was as if the world stepped through the mirror: it pulled out the whole roll of film and winded back to the cassette as I shot, the focus and zoom rings worked the wrong way, etc. But when I changed to DSLR it was so familiar that I don't even thougth about other make. I used borrowed Canons previously, the mighty T70 and AE-1 and ocassionally I grabbed a Nikon here and there, and they were much admired—and hard to use. My mind was set to different track and the Canon ergonomy suited better for me. And I think that the most important part is this.

If you find the Nikon handling more suitable for your ways, it is the Nikon bearing the "best buy" tag for you. If you like buttons and reversed rings Canon is your tool. If you prefer another maker (Minolta was really great, Pentax is absolutely worthy, etc.) then you may be happy with them. My point is to be able to set almost anything with the viewfinder at your eye and following your theme—and if you cannot set EV, ISO or even focusing method without leaving your target, your camera is labelled "too late" all over it. Of course it is just an ideal thing, but I really set many of these settings without letting the camera down and I even shot a cuckoo in flight while changind drive method during following it. (The image result was poor because it was low on light, and motion slightly blurred—but show me ten more airborne cuckoo )  For a Nikon it is ages for me to find the way to adjust the EV, so though I admire Nikon cameras and praise their colours and picture quality, they are not good for me.

And one more point for choosing my first DSLR: I had a good amount of gadgets and add-ons that were for my film-based Canon, and I could use them with my first Canon DSLR. It is good thing if you can use the good old accessories and won't spend more money for gear instead of locations and shooting