But let's not confuse something: the D7000 is not up to the level of the D300s in some critical ways: build-quality, feature set, buffer use, and more. Little things, like the material used over the color LCD, can make somewhat substantive differences in whether a camera manages to take full time pro abuse or lives only up to a lower level of consumer handling. The materials, durability, ruggedness, and other build-quality aspects of the D300s are executed at a slightly higher level. If you're bouncing your camera around in the Outback all year long, the D300s is going to stand up to that better than the D7000, though the D7000 will stand up to it better than a D90 would. Plus the D300s still has some performance advantages: 8 fps maximum frame rate and a critically larger buffer, for example. On the plus side, the D7000 has come mighty close to the D300s level in terms of build quality and features, so I'm sure there will be people who opt for a D7000 over a D300s. But I don't consider the D300s obsolete because the D7000 appeared. It's still an excellent camera, though starting to show its age a bit. I fully trust Nikon will address that next year and then the D300s/D7000 debate will just go away entirely. Until then, I think you have to pick the D300s if your camera handling is going to be abusive and rough, the D7000 if you value image quality and performance (other than frame rate and buffer size) over ruggedness.
