Sony DSC V1
It had the manual features that I was looking for but not the size, nor price, of a full size SLR. I just checked and some online retailers have it in the $350 range.
(A year ago I paid much more than $350

)
The outcome here is what you get when you mess with the settings long enough. That's what I was doing last season during the last DE at Summit since I was too late to sign up for it. BTW, even though it can shoot 5 meg, all these above are taken w/ 1.2 meg settings. Takes less time to transfer to the computer and upload as well.