I am going to comment on the live view feature. I don't own a camera with it. I will tell you that trying to hold a DSLR away from your face like you would do with a point and shoot is very difficult especially with a bigger lens on it. Being able to brace the camera against your face makes it much more stable. But it does have its place. Like mounted on a tripod dong portraits or holding the camera above your head shooting over a crowd. In those cases live view would be nice. The problem with the rest of your question is that it is too generic. I shoot Nikon so that is what I would recommend but like above I am biased. I would go to a shop and hold them and see how they feel and look at the different features each mfg. offers.