Thought this might be of interest here. A friend was asking what the point of having a DSLR is when his compact camera takes such good 12 MP pictures. It's a good question, though I'm sure all here know that big pixels are better than small pixels. So I pitched my A700 against my Lumix FZ38 bridge camera that is the jack of all trades that I carry when travelling light.
Also, note how good the latest ACR 6.4 is at handling high ISO noise with the A700!
http://niphotography.co.uk/sensnoise/Enjoy!
Paul.