Nikon D70 — New Cheap DSLR King?

I’m a member of the Dallas Camera Club and, even if I neglect to read up on the latest digital camera news, I generally hear about the latest cameras just from other members of the club. And, I learned of the Nikon D70 when the club's former president and his wife each bought one (though they’ve only received one so far since there’s a waiting list).

The D70 is Nikon’s foray into the sub-$1000 DSLR market. And, from reading over this D70 review at DPReview, it more than holds its own against its chief competitor, the Digital Rebel from Canon:

Nikon have achieved three major improvements with the D70 (compared to the competition / the D100): (1) They have improved the performance of the camera, with its instant on availability, very fast shutter release, superb continuous shooting and image processing speed and smart use of its buffer. (2) They have maintained build quality while still delivering a smaller and lighter camera, the D70 doesn't feel much less well built than the D100 but is lighter, it certainly feels much more like $1000 worth of camera than the EOS 300D could. (3) They have improved image sharpness and detail, while we could niggle about moiré the compromise between artifacts and sharpness is worth it, in many instances the D70 delivering more detail than our previous benchmark, the EOS 300D / EOS 10D CMOS sensor. […]

Though the review’s comparison section focuses primarily on the (Nikon) D100 and the (Canon) Digital Rebel, I was hoping for a comparison against Canon’s EOS-10D as well (which costs more, but the comparison would be interesting nonetheless).

In any case, I’m not particularly in the market for a new camera. I bought a Nikon Coolpix 5700 last spring and I’m still pleased with it. Granted, it doesn’t have through-the-lens metering which annoys me a bit and makes the camera less useful in low-light situations, but I think I can live without that for the time being.