Lawrence - how are you liking your Panasonic/Leica camera anyways?

I agree with everybody here - it really depends on the lenses that she already has. You'll spend a bundle on lenses. It's actually not the camera that's critical - it's the lenses that are. Frankly, if image quality is important, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to buy an expensive camera and to buy a 3rd party lens on it - Canon and Nikon became the biggest SLR manufacturers primarily because of the quality of the lenses and that's what they're primarily known for.

BTW, if your girlfriend is using Nikon, I'd actually recommend getting the D200, not the D80. Better build quality and faster shooting. Though the D80 is a very respectable alternative if the price on the D200 is too high. (I'm one of the few Nikon users here on LCT, I think :D )

Masaki