well, as a fellow member of the canon fan club: how about one of the canon HF series? I have an HF10 that I use for wide shots and the quality is phenominal especially for a camera about the size of a soda can. The only thing I would caution you about is that it records in AVCHD which means you will have to have a very powerful computer and not all editing systems will support the codec, however the picture quality is so worth it, and you will be able to use this for an amount of years to come higher than I can count. ha ha
Otherwise, i think your original idea of the HG10 is a solid choice.
