Melissa,
I'd look at the Pentax K-3. We have one and we love it. And the price has dropped precipitously. But then it becomes a question of how much you want to put into lenses, of course. Pentax has also announced a full-frame camera which is really, really interesting. And that might be worth waiting for (although it's going to be monstrously expensive at first).
The K-3 doesn't have nearly as many automatic presets as others do...so the learning curve is steeper. But it might annoy you less.
Sorry that today's darkroom is about the mouse rather then the visceral. Don't know what to say there. However...I still shoot 100 shots looking for the "right one". Or more, really.
The other side of this is that you might just end up hating the digital world...so a substantial investment in great gear might not be the right answer. The other thing is there are a lot of online places (and around here, local places) that will let you rent a specific camera and lens combo for a few days (tho I've not seen any Pentax offered online that way). So maybe try that and see how you feel about using a professional-level camera (shooting RAW) and processing what you shoot? Dunno. But the K-3 is a fantastic camera and has really produced some stunning results for us (even me).
