It's that time of year again. My In Box piles up with people's tortured analysis of what they think they should buy and why. Just this morning I got one with an accompanying spreadsheet that integrated four or five different sources of information in an attempt to come up with a decision. Of course, the reason why the sender included me in on his little analysis was that he didn't like what the analysis revealed (or didn't reveal).
Camera makers love the fact that you're confused. Ironically, it makes it easier to distract you into buying something you actually won't like or need (i.e. make the wrong choice and have to buy again).
Part of the problem is that everyone is chasing "the perfect camera," something I've written about before. There is no such thing, so just stop trying to fudge data to prove that there is. There isn't even one camera that's necessarily just better than all the others after all analysis is done. The notion that there's "one winner" out of the hundreds of options available is also wrong.
For every "the D3s has the best sensor of any digital camera" statement you can come up with, I can come up with "the D3s is an expensive, heavy, and complex camera that works best with expensive, heavy, complex lenses" type of statements. Everything has pluses and minuses.
The trick in trying to decide what to ask for (or reward yourself with) this Christmas isn't to get lost in the details, but to truly understand what it is that's holding you back. It might not be equipment at all (e.g. ask for a workshop for Christmas, or a book explaining something you don't know perhaps). Low light problems are solved in multiple ways: bigger, better sensors, or faster lenses, or addition of light (flash).
So relax, folks. Don't over analyze. Instead, prioritize. What's the one thing that's keeping your photography from being better in 2012 than it was in 2011. The answer isn't likely "a D800" (or "a D4" or a "D400"). Those are things we want, not need.
I should also point out that most of my audience is looking at making choices that involve a system (FX, DX, m4/3, whatever mount you're interested in). Here things get more complicated, but can still be handled. Over time, things like sensors will change for the better. It's entirely appropriate to pick a system that you can grow into, even if all the elements you need aren't there today. Of course, you need to a pick a system that you guess will eventually have all those elements.
For example, m4/3 has a wide range of good lens choices with more appearing every day. I'm not worried about lens choice in m4/3. I'm also not worried about body choices: I've got more than enough already, and even though none is absolutely perfect, I can finesse that issue by buying two different bodies so that I have what I need when I need it. Sensors worry me a bit in m4/3, as I believe that the Panasonic sensors are lagging the Sony/Nikon sensors a bit, but time heals that wound.
Likewise, DX seems to have its foibles for most. Certainly not in the body, where we've got some great choices, both old and current. Sensors are great. But where are those lenses we really want? In the meantime, I can get my wide angle fix via a zoom instead of primes, but here, too, I suspect that time will heal the wound.
The thing you have to worry about are dead-end systems and ones that don't appear to be growing rapidly enough to provide all the goodies you'll eventually want. I hesitate to mention the Ricoh GXR, as I actually like that camera a lot, but as a system choice, you need to be absolutely sure that what's there and what's likely to come in the near future (only one more lensor, the 28-70mm APS), is enough to sustain you. Indeed the whole lensor thing (lens+sensor in a single module) is one of the things that should make you hesitate before picking up a GXR: you buy lenses locked with sensors. So you can't buy sensor today, lenses tomorrow, or lenses today and sensors tomorrow. It seems entirely likely that the 28mm 12mp APS lensor will be replaced by a 28mm 16mp APS lensor some day. In other words, it's not much of a "system," as you keep replacing much of what you've already got.
Your homework for today is simple: what's your photographic priority? What's the one thing, should you get it for Christmas, that will make you a better photographer with the rest of the stuff you already have. I'd guess that it's rare that the answer is "a completely new system."