I was close to buying the FZ5 too but is now reviewing the Canon S2 first.
To me, the flip screen is a minus, not a plus. Makes the camera look more cumbersome, another moving part to fail. Another minus is the 4 AA batteries which makes the camera bulky and heavy. The plus point for me is the VGA movie mode...That's a really great feature with the kids.
However, the FZ5 image quality rated very well on most of the camera sites. megapixel.net gave it a 10 for normal images and 9 for flash images compared with 9 and 8 respectively for the Canon S1.
Not forgetting its using a higher end Leica lens whereas the canon is using their standard canon lens.
waiting for the review on dpreview and megapixel first.
if the image rating is 9, I go for the FZ5. If its 10...arggg...decison problem again!