I think I am due for a new DSLR now, mind you the last few months I spent in Europe I made a decision not to take all my photography gear with me and opted for my new pocket Canon PowerShot SD870IS instead. It was a difficult, but smart decision, I was on the road for several weeks, trekking across several (7) countries and there is only so much I can carry on my back for such a long time. The point and shoot did an amazing job snapping close 4,000 photos (and capturing a few videos with it as well) which I am just now processing and posting on Flickr and here. All in all, I was really pleased with it, but as much I would love to have my DSLR with me, it would not be wise choice for the specific nature and duration of this trip. Since it was a one off type advature and I don't think I will doing anything as drastic or similar in the near future I want to return to shooting with DSLR while concering more countries in the near future, but I am due for re-fresher as the body of old camera is very worn out by now.
I am thinking seriously (all though I am still doing my research on it) about getting Canon EOS 50D. Now Canon EOS 5D would be really nice treat but it would brand new set of lens for it which would get very expensive, so I may go with Canon EOS 50D (I thought about also getting older Canon EOS 40D but since the price differece is so small I think I should go with Canon EOS 50D). Anyways, reviews about Canon EOS 50D online seem to point like we got another winner from Canon with many interesting improvements from Canon EOS 40D. However 40D may also be a better and cheaper choice, since there are some trade offs as pointed out by www.dpreview.com:

Image quality. Below ISO 1600 image output is clean with well balanced contrast and colors and as you would expect from a DSLR with a 15 megapixel sensor the 50D delivers a fair amount of detail. Having said that, in terms of per-pixel sharpness the 50D cannot quite keep up with the better 10 or 12 megapixel APS-C DSLRs in the market. At higher sensitivities the smaller photosites are clearly producing more noise (as shown from our RAW comparisons) and so Canon is having to apply more noise reduction to keep to acceptable noise levels, this of course means a loss of detail from ISO 1600 upwards. It appears that Canon has reached the limit of what is sensible, in terms of megapixels on an APS-C sensor. At a pixel density of 4.5 MP/cm² (40D: 3.1 MP/cm², 1Ds MkIII: 2.4 MP/cm²) the lens becomes the limiting factor. Even the sharpest primes at optimal apertures cannot (at least away from the center of the frame) satisfy the 15.1 megapixel sensors hunger for resolution. Considering the disadvantages that come with higher pixel densities such as diffraction issues, increased sensitivity towards camera shake, reduced dynamic range, reduced high ISO performance and the need to store, move and process larger amounts of data, one could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that at this point the megapixel race should probably stop. One consequence of this is that the 50% increase in pixel count over the 40D results in only a marginal amount of extra detail. We're by no means saying the 50Ds image quality is bad but it's simply not significantly better than the ten megapixel 40D.

I think that 10 or 12 megapixels is more than enough for me... But than there is a long list new and extra features in 50D which are missing from 40D. Luckly for me, I am not jumping on it yet as I don't have to have it right away! I will be digging around more reviews and checking out photos posted on Flickr taken with both of them as well chatting with owners to get a better and more direct feedback for a few more weeks /or months to see what makes more sense to me. Either one of them - 50D and 40D will work with all my lens which is very important, it means I would just get the new body only. One of these two models will be my new buddy to carry around soon, unless Canon comes with something else in the mean time. For now I better get back to my photo editing...