I believe there is a housing available already for the 610 and 620 by Canon? I may be wrong, it's happened before
Although a strobe is fantastic, you can do some great stuff with just the onboard flash, too. It's just a matter of getting to know your camera - and this applies to any system, strobe or not. Check out calypsonick's stuff from pre-May this year...all done with internal flash only. You migh consider just getting the camera and housing first then buying a "better" strobe at a later date if you really get into it. A strobe not only adds cost, but increases the learning time and is more to lug around. A "better" strobe will last a lot longer - even through camera changes so for me, it's worth it.
I think legopacific shoots without a strobe, too.
I like the Canon A series cameras a lot. No RAW, but from the variety of shooters I see come through these little camera produce great results. We've used several shots from the 3.2 versions for advertising in A4 brochures and even had images blown up to 22"! The S series is also looking pretty nice and I believe at least some of those do have RAW capabilities. I like both of these because they are also small and likley to get used a lot more than some monster that needs lugging around! I am really happy with my Oly 5050, but I NEVER haul it around on land
Not sure that helps...this is such a tough question! I still believe you can't go too far wrong with any of the major players: Canon, Oly, Fuji (I think NWgratefuldiver shoots a F10 that has no manual controls at all, but still does nice shots - it's all about learning to use a particular camera...it's the artist not the tool!), Nikon. I personally don't like the Sony offerings as much, but some who have them love them.
