Ah! Okay, well that's good, bc it sounds like you know whatcha want, ya know? That's part of the battle!
Before I went the DSLR route (I also had a 35mm film SLR before that, those are fun too), I had a Canon Elph (loved) for my P&S, which broke - so then I got (about 2 years ago?) the
Panasonic Lumix on eBay for about $75-100 -- don't know why it's this $$ price now on Amazon. The great thing about the Lumix is it actually has a Leica lens...which is pretty great...it would be a dream to own a "real" Leica lens...they're really nice, to put it mildly.
How do you feel about a used DSLR? I know that can be touchy and some people are totally against it...but depending on if you could find a great seller (maybe even locally)...you could def. get more camera for your $. But that really depends on your comfort level too. Btw, almost all DSLR cameras will be able to tell you how many times their shutters have been clicked, which is nice
.
I think someone here on YT uses the Canons you're thinking about though...so hopefully you'll hear more reviews/thoughts about them...
I did read the user reviews on Amazon about the D3000, and it does appear that the 1-2-3 star reviewers seemed to be mostly unhappy with the noise in the pictures, usually at high ISO settings -- and you won't want to sacrifice ISO, when you really need it. You might want to read the user reviews on Amazon...I didn't read the D5000's reviews there yet though...
That said, perhaps they received cameras where something was wrong? I mean, that does happen w/ electronics...