Would I buy the Nikon D70 if I had a do-over?
Yes. I already had several quality lenses from my F100 body, so that already tilted me in the direction of Nikon as I didn't want to spend money on new glass. The Nikon's metering system is simply amazing ... exposures, colors, white balance in even challenging high contrast frames are just spot on. The one thing that I found in shooting outdoor sports, s o c c e r, baseball, etc., that I didn't want to worry about messing with metering settings while panning from bright areas of the field to dim or high contrast foreground/background. I wanted to keep my attention on capturing the action. And metering is what Nikon does better than anyone.
The only thing I could wish for in a D70+ is slightly more frames per sec in continuous shoot mode ... my film F100 can do 4.5 to the D70's 3fps. It just forces me to be a little more precise with my shots.
There are cameras out there at similar price points that do more fps, have more autofocus points, do audio and short Mpeg videos, have 8 MB CCDs, etc., but at the end of the day, the one thing the D70 does very, very well is take beautiful pictures. If I were starting from scratch (no previous equipment) I'd take a serious look at the new Canon 20D, but it's $500-$600 more than the D70 for mainly an additional 2 fps and 8.2 Meg instead of 6.1 Meg ... you could buy a really nice lens with that $500-$600.
If money were no object, I'd be all over the Nikon D2X, but my wife tells me that's in the same category as my dream Harley Davidson Roadking Classic ... the "not in this lifetime" category.
Here's a couple of examples of what a D70 can do with complex foreground/background constrasts ... just a warning ... these are big JPEG files.
Pitching 1.6MBMaui Sunset 2.1 MB