I'm on my second Canon PowerShot and have never had a complaint (the first one still works, but was an earlier generation with low megapixels. My kids use it now.) Prices have been great lately, too.
I'm not sure what the current models are like (my camera is a year or so old now) but I found that I felt comfortable after reading a few reviews in sticking with Canon, and then looking at features and affordability from there. For example, I had a preference for a camera that takes standard batteries but I was also concerned about flash response time, so I was looking for specific information like that.
I found the review site dpreview (digital photography review) to be very helpful: http://www.dpreview.com/ They have a buying guide, or this might help too: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q408budgetgroup/