Well, I guess that would be difficult to address. Was there mention of how many actuations were on the shutter? This is typically the only "wearing" part of the camera body. They are good to 200,000 - 300,000 clicks. Even then, a shutter replacement last time I had it done was around $200.
This leads to really one of the MAIN reasons most professionals, and serious amateurs choose Canon. That's customer service and repairs. Canon is absolutely fantastic in this regard, and it's very well documented. Any repair, warranty or otherwise, are performed usually with lightning speed. I had to send in my 1DmkIII last year for the sub-mirror adjustment. It was kind of a "recall", as I thought the camera was perfect before. I sent it anyway, because they extended the 1yr warranty from the date of the repair, so that made it worth it. It seemed exactly the same after return, perfect. They emailed me a UPS prepaid OVERNIGHT shipping slip, I sent it out on a Monday, and received it back and "repaired" by Thursday that same week. I couldn't believe it. When I got the shutter replaced on a previous camera, I was without the camera 9 total days, including the weekend.
So, in other words, Canon is VERY good in this regard. You never have to feel like you're the only darn person in the country that owns that camera, like I used to feel with Nikon. I know they (Nikon) are making strides to provide better customer service, but they are no where near there yet. At least this is what I'm told from my 2 Nikon buddy's who borrow my Canon Telephoto's and 1D3's whenever they go to Yellowstone NP
It's your call. The 50D will be a great camera too, no doubt about it. Plus, and this I can EASILY understand, there's just something about opening some gear BRAND NEW, and you're the only owner. That feeling will (obviously) not be there buying used. Either will be as much camera as you can handle, though different. Both will have advantages and disadvantages, but there's no way you could go wrong with either.
The only feature the 50D has that's not on the 5D which I think is quite beneficial is the Micro Adjust AF feature. This is on my Pro cameras, and I love it with the fast glass that I live for. Super handy. The new LCD is AMAZING!!!, but that doesn't translate to image quality of course.
Let us know how you proceed.
ROb
