Quote Originally Posted by Anbesol
a lot of people are shocked by what a TRUE digital image looks like, because of the technology of RGB interpolation that ALL camera's use outside of sigmas fovean line, edges and areas of high contrast tend to be slightly soft. Processors in point and shoots will sharpen the images in areas of high contrast, but SLR's tend not to, and tend to give you a more raw image (in more literal terms of the word, not just in the format). And canon's SLR line particularly does even less in camera sharpening then other SLR's. Two ways of going about this - if you want usable, sharp pictures right out of the camera, you can turn up your in-camera sharpening, or youre better option would be to process it better through photoshop/paintshop/etc, using something like unsharp masking, which would give you an even better control over the sharpness you desire. Images that use less in-camera processing and less in-camera sharpening like canon's lend themselves to more flexible creative control in post-processing.

I could be totally off, maybe it is the auto-focus motor. Have you tried macro focussing on a different lens? Canon lens have the auto focus technology built into the lens, so the focussing isnt part of the actual canon body, but rather the lens. Is it possible the softness you're experiencing could be a matter of in-camera sharpening?
In my first post, I stated that I used RAW (no in camera sharpening), tested with Manual Focus as well as AF, and different lenses & bodies - to answer your questions.

I use unsharp masking all the time. Canon recommends 300, 0.3, 0 for these settings. I use them in Photoshop CS.

Luckily I have the 10D which proves to me the weak link is the 20D.