I'm not a Sony fan either (I'm not a fan of any brand), though I've owned 4 Sony cameras and all have been excellent and were the right picks for me - including my current two. I like to avoid brand-fanaticism and just pick the best camera for my needs at the time - for the past 4 years, it's been a Sony. I've also had Pentax, Canon, and Fuji gear. None of the brands pay me any money to promote them, so I can't see any reason to be overly committed to one brand of anything!
If it's in your budget range, the NEX is definitely a solid option that will easily outshoot any P&S by a mile or two, in pretty much any respect of performance. It is essentially a miniaturized DSLR - a full APS-C sensor, but remove the mirror and optical path, drop the registration distance to almost zero, and wrap the body around the sensor and LCD with no room to spare. The NEX3 is the bargain right now - it is soon to be replaced by the NEXC3, so production has stopped on this one and it is on closeout for excellent prices. The NEX5 is a few hundred more - the primary difference being the all-titanium body build and deeper grip, remote shutter capability, and slightly higher video spec (1080HD vs 720HD). The NEX3 is actually thinner overall, and slightly taller - the two are the smallest APS-C you can get. You have up to 7 fps shooting, can comfortably shoot up to ISO6400, have automatic 6-frame stacking modes for extreme low light, built in auto-aligning HDR stacking, live shooting histogram, tilting LCDs with very high resolution, customizable control buttons for direct access to all necessary manual controls, and via adapters the ability to use any lens of any mount ever made in manual focus mode.
If you want to stick to a pure P&S, the lag issue is less than it used to be, at least on the better models - you might do well to look at the Canon S95 or Panasonic LX5 if you want to maintain some manual controlability - they have larger sensors than typical P&S cameras (though still miniscule compared to DSLRs and mirrorless cams).
I picked up a NEX3 with 18-55 stabilized kit lens for under $500 to accompany my A550 kit, to bring along as a second body with the DSLR or to take its place when I wanted to travel lighter. I've picked up two manual lens adapters (Pentax K mount and Konica K/AR mount) and 11 different manual lenses to play with when the bug hits - the amazing fast primes and gorgeous manual lenses long since forgotten can be picked up for chump change and can perform as well or better than the new lenses of today...my total investment for manual lenses is $100 for 6 lenses, plus the 5 Pentax K mount lenses from 1977 which I already had. I've got 2 28mm F2.8s, a 40mm F1.8, a 50mm F1.7, 50mm F1.9, and 50mm 2, a 135mm F2.8, and 4 zooms including a very nice 70-210mm F3.5.
