There are people who buy their compact cameras because they "like the design". There are those who buy theirs because of its lightweight, its long zoom, its anti-shake feature, its battery life, its large screen, its PRICE, its compactness (is there such word?) or its brand name, etc. Ultimately, we are going to look at the images it produce, so why not go for image quality? I am sure most Clubsnappers will agree with this. No point buying a camera which looks 'cool' but the images suck. A very good example is Casio compact cameras. They look cool, small and have anti-shake features BUT the image looks bad (from my experience, no amount of Photoshop work can clean up images from a Casio camera. The noise level is unbelievable). However, Casio is good for making calculators and watches (I wear a G-Shock watch and use their scientific calculators).
So... folks, the choice is yours (after all it is your money that you are spending, not mine).