Hi Hilmar

>1) What are the things to watch out for? Megapixels is one feature often toutet, but it would seem to me that, given that I plan to use send many pictures by e-mail and perhaps put a few on my Web site, 5 megapixels (for example) would be an overkill, since I will have to reduce the quality anyway. What other features would be relevant?

You are right with the observations, I have noticed that 1Mp is sufficient to print 4x6 prints. I took a couple of photographs of printed material (center spread) at diff. resoultion and 4x6 never made a huge diff. Plus with a lower resolution the memory card will go a longer way else you will start investing in more and more memory cards.

Get the ones that have (Lithium?) chargeable battries. I know of a person who has AA battries in his camera and the cost of battries is going high and plus the power in AA doesn't last as long.