What does the person that made that determination know about what you need?
What you need is the best photo reference you can possibly get.
If money is the consideration (and I don't sneeze at a $500 difference) then I would go with the Canon Digital Rebel SLR. That is a bunch of camera for the money.
I would be willing to bet that the difference in user friendliness between these point and shoots and either the Canon or Nikon SLR's is non existent. I took my camera out of the box and shot up a storm before I ever cracked the book.
Check out this link, "all pixels are not created equal":
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/es...ounting1.shtml
For me the SLR is far and away better in those areas that matter most to me -- low light, and image quality.