Canon vs Panasonic Vs Sony - Stills the deciding factor?

[dapster105]

Hi all,
I'm just stuck. There it is. I've read and absorbed and researched and decoded various manufacturers product coding schemes and I'm stuck.

I want HD, I want flash and I want on-board memory/disk if the price is right. I have big hands so the extra size of an HDD might even be an advantage.

My gut says the Panny HS100 - I love the manual ring, Viera link (Panny TV owner) and the fact that it captures progressive scan.

The Canon HG20 also looks good.

BUT, both of those have relatively low resolution stills capture (2 - 2.7 mp) and if I'm going to spend £600+ then surely I don't want to have to lug my Canon S2IS 5mp stills camera around as well!?
I know megapixels is only part of the equation and lens is v.important, but 2mp from the Panny still seems low for stills (it's basically HD resolution, right?).

Enter the Sony HDR-SRs. Now, there are a number of things which I'd personally count against the Sonys -
MemoryStick (yuck)
TouchScreen menus (double-yuck)
Proprietary shoe (sigh)
Interlaced rather than progressive scan(?)

Those things said, I'm told the video quality is great, and (what brings it into the reckoning) the stills capture is at 10mp through 'interpolation'.

I can't assess the quality of the stills output and I have no idea what interpolation means in this context (is it a cheap electronic trick?).

Can anyone give guidance as to the stills output of any of the above camcorders?

Am I being ridiculous worrying about only getting 2-3mp stills out of the Panny/Canon?

Don't get me wrong - I know I'm not buying this as a stills camera. Video quality and useability are the main decision factors, but based on those alone I cannot separate these in my mind, and if the difference between them is a practical one of whether I carry 1 camera or 2 everywhere I go, then it's a no-brainer.

Can anyone offer any other advice that can break the tangled knot of indecision in my head?

Thanks!