I've never owned an ultra-zoom prosumer digital camera before, but have been thinking about it. At the time of writing, the Oly SP550 and Panasonic DMC-FZ50 appear to be the reigning cameras in the big-zoom niche.
If I were to pick one, which would it be? Both have optical image stabilization, so no blurry pictures from [...]

At the time of writing, the Canon G7 and Olympus SP550 are two of the most popular prosumer digital cameras. Both are extremely feature-packed and competitively priced around USD499, so which one to choose?
I've compiled below a summary of various discussions surrounding both cameras.