Hi, I'm an A2 user. It's a very good "general purpose" camera in that it covers most situations pretty well. It's about as good as prosumer cameras can get. In outdoor daylight situations, the AF bites on pretty quickly, but night and indoor shots tend to get quite iffy, no matter how much Minolta claims it has improved over the A1 and 7Hi (I used to use the 7Hi also).
I'm a bit concerned about sharpness issues, though. It's quite a common complaint. People say this can be overcome by using post-processing or using in-camera sharpening, but I still think this shouldn't be the way in the first place.
Also note that because of the inherent design, you'll notice the Ax pictures will have less "pop" than those film prints from your 3xi, simply because the depth-of-field range is very limited. Even at max zoom, max aperture, you just can't get the background to de-focus enough.
But hey, it ain't all bad. I've used my 7Hi for more than a year and have been very happy with what I squeezed out of it. Now with the A2, once I worked around its limitations, I think it's pretty cool to use, too. Especially the anti-shake feature. It definitely lives up to the hype.
And the one major advantage that non-interchangeable cameras have over most DSLRs: You don't get CCD-dust problems. I can't believe how easy it is to attract dust no matter how careful you are whilst changing lenses.
So, to conclude, if you think you DON'T need a DSLR, the Minolta Ax series is definitely the way to go.
