Hi Nick, you have done a lot more research than I have on batteries no doubt.
One of my Makita's is 10 years old and the original battery is running strong - I don't think the NMH (Nickel Metal Hydride or whatever) was born yet. That old Makita has been through the war and keeps on ticking with the original battery.

I got some newer Makita's in 2003 and the impact wrench came with the NMH high amp batteries and the other drill set came with the old orange ones that I believe are still the older Ni-Cads. The NMH ones do hold a charge longer, have more balls, but I trust that the orange ones will still last longer than the competition.

On the Canon, the link to the SD800 Elf noted above says this:

Of course when someone is selling something they are gonna lie to you... but there is something "proprietary" with Canon's compared to other brands.   At Amazon you can buy an extra factory Canon battery for 34.99, or with a "strap and a case" for $45.99.  Or you can get a generic knock-off battery alone for $9.79 from Amazon for that same camera. 

I would put my money on the factory battery - and that is what I plan to do when I buy this camera with spare battery.  The knock-off is Li-ion, but I just know it won't compare to the Canon factory battery.  Update:  I see another Generic for that camera and the review say it is as good as the factory battery for only 10.54 and for that price I would be tempted to get it as a 3rd one in rotation.

the proprietary may be the factor, it could have a cell balancer, or microchip in the battery pack so that the battery keeps together longer. good find.

for $10.00, the experiment should be fun. there could be a quality difference, or the battery may not of passed through as many vendors.( ie; Canon USA buys battery from Canon japan, who then buys from sourcing company, who then buys from china manufacture.)

i use to work with a company out of california that sourced molding, electronic, and 100 of other various products from china. I lost faith in a lot of high dollar brands while there. I was sourcing the same helmet for Bell helmets(one of the largest and most expensive helmet manufactures on the market) that i was for a small company that would install a mp3 player headset in the helmet and sell them for tremendously less.

my interest in lithiums started when i began flying electric RC planes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm_QDi4DAc8  i went from buying the cheap cells, to the $400-$500 cells and then back to the cheaper. I learned that maintaining your cells with the proper chargers and equipment was more important than what you spent on the cells.

Sony Lithium batteries have a chip set in them to tell you how much more battery power you have to work with. Thats how we keep up with the Mavica battery life. We have some of the lithiums that have lasted well over 4 years. If properly maintained, they last a long time.

I treasured my Mavica back in the day. And your right, those were good batteries, especially considering the work they have to do spinning that disk compared to today's cameras that simply push electrons.  I had 3 batteries in rotation for my old Mavica because the flash + spinning disk would run them down.  But they would charge up and last for years. 

They never made a Mavica with a wide angle lens.  I felt like I had to walk back on a roof, all the way "off" the roof in order to show what I wanted to show.  And I like to take a very wide shot of the room, then close ups of the damage. 

The other thing is that the cost of memory storage has gone down so much. Here you can see a 1 gig memory card for that Canon digital Elph for 13.75 and that = 694 floppy disks. I find that the newer cameras will focus, fire, and be ready for the next photo while the Mavica would still be "churning away" at the floppy disk.

Nowadays I walk back to the office with a ton of photos, plug a 2 gig USB Flash memory stick in the back of the laptop. I "copy" all images to the USB drive as a "virgin" backup, in a folder with today's date. There could be 5 inspections all dumped into that folder.  

Then I "Move" the images off the camera memory card into folders for the different claims on my hard drive. This leaves my camera ready for the next day's photos, and the whole process goes faster than the Mavica, despite the fact that the Mavica made it's own backup (the floppy disk itself).

If it ain't broke don't fix it... but Janice I have a hint of what you can get Tom for Xmas.

Bob, I still use a Mavica too.  Tom and I each have one.  I use his sometime, his is newer and of course more advanced than mine.  The problem with me using his is I sometimes forget to turn on the flash and have very dark pictures.     The flash on mine is automatic.  We just bought two new batteries for our Mavicas to replace some that were over 7 years old.  So, since I invested in new batteries, I plan to continue using my Mavica.  I have a wide angle lens for my Mavica, but it's a pain to have to put it on and take it off.   Tom bought me a fancy Canon "something or other" for our anniversary, and I use it some, but prefer the Mavica for work.  What can I say, I'm old and set in my ways.

What makes you think I'm getting Tom anything for Christmas?

HINT: I sure do like the Canon Rebel EOS XT, as I have a multitude of Canon lenses I use for my 35MM Canon Rebel. They will work on the new digital camera. I hardly use the 35MM anymore. I should probably sell the Canon body on E-Bay rather than let it lay collecting dust.

HINT: Christmas is near, my birthday (11/22/07) and our anniversary is on my birthday. Married 16 years to a wonderful, loving lady. Kiss, Kiss. My old Mavica is still working excellent, as I take care of it properly. Janice's old Mavica is about 7 years  old, banged up by roofs, etc., but it too is still working well. I am a Canon camera person. I think their technology is better than the rest. I love photography and at one time did free lance photography in my spare time. I did a lot of aerial photography years ago. I let one of my daughters fly my Cessna Skylane and did residental photos and after developing, gave the 8x10's to my 4 daughters and let them canvass the neighborhoods and sell them. I let them keep the money for extra stuff they might want. They made a LOT of money doing that. I would say they sold at least 90% of what was taken.

I bought one of those also, back in the day, as I was so frustrated by the lack of wide angle. But it made the photos look like a "fishbowl" with curved lines. Maybe yours is better.

Cuz you folks found work.

Yep, they fit and work, but there is a conversion factor that happens because the imaging device on the digital camera is smaller than the old 35mm film negative. If you put a 28mm wide angle lens on, it acts like a 45mm lens.  There is a 1.6 conversion factor for most digital SLR's (Single Lens Reflex).

If money is no object, there is a Canon EOS with an imaging sensor the same size as 35mm film, but still very expensive. They will keep coming down in price though.  If I had to buy a digital SLR today, I would buy the same camera you are talking about but get the lens made for it,

Available only in the Digital Rebel XTi kit, Canon's compact EF-S 18–55mm f/3.5–5.6 zoom lens approximates a 28–90mm zoom lens (in 35mm format).

These numbers I am referring to are the "Focal Length" and I know Tom understands that.  For those who are not familiar, that is a measurement from where the light "crosses" (as the image turns upside down on the film) to the surface of the film (or imaging sensor on a digital camera).  That distance is the focal length, and it determines if you are zoomed in or wide angle.

If you had a small cardboard box and pushed a nail into the side, so the light entered from that point to expose the film, that is the focal length from the "hole" to the film.  These were called "pinhole" cameras and had no lens at all.   The light "crosses" at that pinhole, and lands upside-down on the film.  Today's camera's do the same thing, but the lens helps to focus the image.

A focal length of 28mm on a 35mm camera produces a traditional wide angle.  35mm refers to the size of the negative, and this site does a good job of explaining how all this works http://www.panoramafactory.com/equiv35/equiv35.html    

A focal length of 50mm was a "normal" lens (what the human eye sees) that was neither zoomed -in, nor wide.  The 105mm is a classic "portrait" lens, it zooms in on the subject.  Sports photography requires powerful zoom lenses, a focal length of say 500 would be zoomed in to the point that it was only looking at only a very small part of the football field.

I have had a Sony Cybershot P-200 for several years.  It has a Lithium battery.  I bought an extra battery and rotate them.  The camera is extremely durable and has survived several impacts with the ground from the roof, one being concrete.  The optical zoom is great and it has a lot of other features I do not use.  Small rooms are a pain and a better wide angle feature would be helpful.  Any advice on tweeking the wide angles would be appreciated.  Overall I give it a good rating and would buy it again.