Why the SONY

1. 2001 my first digital camera was a Panasonic PV-SD4090
   with a "HD" resolution (1280x960)
2. Followed 2002 by a refurbished Nicon Coolpix 950
   they did not do a pretty good job refurbishing
3. Followed 2003 by a Kyocera Finecam L3v 
   she did not like recharchable batteries 
4. Followed 2003  by a Canon PowerShot A60
   she was my favorite take everywhere 
5. Followed 2005 by a Canon PowerShot S2 IS
    - the coarse viewfinder and the tiny display + swivel screen
   
6. Followed 2007 by a Ricoh Caplio R6
   this shows you a bit how deep I dig into a camera to get the most out of it.
   
7. Followed 2009 by the FujiFilm S2000HD
   she was so bad (see video) I returned her
   
8. Followed 2009 by the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 

So much for my digicam history.
When Canon came out with the SX10 and later SX1 I got myself a SX10 and
did some major comparison with my 4 year old S2. The first day testing was very bad the S2 was mostly better. So I needed to dig deeper and be more patient AND spend lots more time to learn to use the tool named Canon SX10. You can read my struggles here.
Canon made some very stupid choices with the SX1 like a bad viewfinder (I had that with the S2 and you could forget about manual focusing) a 4/3 sensor but 16/9 viewfinder and display and the non tactile ring to change settings.
From the look and feel she is still my favorite and if not for these stupid choices, this blog would be about the SX1...

The Kodak EasyShare Z980, Nikon Coolpix P90, Olympus SP-590UZ and the Pentax X70 are pretty much the same cameras. Same sensor, same optics etc. Just a bit different in looks, video res. and displays. Jeff compared them here for you. The Nicon was the only one with a movable screen but had just VGA video.Anyhow for my taste they all look like toy cameras with the double lens barrel extended.
FujiFilm S2000HD this one I tried but the pictures were too soft and the HD video mode had big problems with changing brightness and a very noisy video zoom:

When I got the SX10 I also tried out the Panasonic FZ28 but the screen was unusable if you held the camera below the line of sight and the viewfinder was tiny that disqualified her for me instantly and the FZ38 has still the same screen and viewfinder.

So why the Sony now?
See the good, the bad and the ugly on the right column.
My 9 month search came to an end when I saw this comparison between the Nikon D60 * Panasonic LX3 * Sony DSC-HX1
I read through this - this - this and lots of other thisis, but hey these were my key points on the way to decide for the HX1.