I have been thrilled with the olympus cameras that I have and have had over the years.
The digital model I have is no longer available but takes great pictures, excellent battery life, and has taken a beating and keeps on ticking. (Olympus Camedia C-60)
My next point & Shoot will be an olympus stylus digital. I bought my mom one for Christmas 2 years ago but that model has been discontinued as well.
A big factor in selecting cameras is how easy is it to hold and more importantly hold still so you can take a good clean picture. Many of the cameras today have image stabilization because with the zoom levels available today few people can hold them still enough to get a clear picture.
Several factors to consider
Megapixels- higher MP means better quality picture and the ability to print larger pictures the downside is that it makes a larger file so fewer fit on the same sized card. 7.0MP will give you a good 10X12.
Zoom - obvious function be aware of 2 types 5X optical is more than adequate for most people.
Digital Zoom - this is essentially a crop tool built into the camera and is cheap to do
Optical Zoom - zoom in the traditional sense, accomplished by lenses and more expensive but far better.
Image retrieval - some cameras (Kodak for sure) require their software to extract from the camera or you need to use a memory card reader Others use odd special cables. Look for one with a standard USB connector on the camera end (this way when you loose the cable or the dog eats it you can go buy a replacement or a spare anywhere)
Battery life - AA batteries tend to be short lived in digicams (especially with flash use), I am a fan of the rechargeable batteries, extras are cheap if you need them, (ebay) and it does not take long to spend 30 on AA batteries. My brother went on a 2 week trip to Nepal with 2 fully charged batteries in his Olympus and came back with about 1000 images and battery life left.
If you like the outdoors Olympus has a line of shock & waterproof cameras that are very durable, I have my old stylus 35mm film that survived the hands of an an avid outdoors kid/teen/adult since I was 12, It's been on backpacking trips, canoe trips, dropped in puddles, on rocks, and overall abused, but still takes amazing pictures.
In all of my love of Olympus cameras the downside is that they have their own memory card design (so does sony) so not all card readers will have an XD slot.