[Bullitt]

I second everything you just said UT (and I have the same camera too!). Three basic things about digital cameras: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. The right combination of all three of these will produce the image you want. We'll start with ISO:
ISO: the sensitivity rating of film, applied to the image sensor of digital cameras. Basically, the ISO rating shows how sensitive the camera's sensor is to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensative the senor is to the light soming in through the lens. The high the ISO however, the more noise there will be in an image. And likewise, the lower rating used the less noise there will be. This isn't noise as in how loud the camera is, this is the grain so to speak of the image. Basically, the more noise, the crappier image (with few exceptions, depending upon the kind of shot you are going for). Noise is also determined by the physical size of the image sensor. The cool camera with wow 10mp and it fits in your jeans pocket is great and all.. but cramming all the information from 10 million pixels onto a tiny sensor will result in more noise.
Shutter speed: Simple one here, how fast the cameras shutter is when actuated. A longer (bigger number) shutter speed, the more light that is allowed into the camera, and thus a brighter image. However, with slower shutter speeds needed for low light situations, you will get blurry images if you don't use a tripod.
Aperture: Basically how big the hole in the camera is that allows light onto the sensor. This also determines focusing distance. A lower aperture (2.8 is the most common lowest one), will allow more light into the camera, but will also have less of the image in focus (closer stuff will be, further stuff will not). The higher the aperture, the smaller the hole will be pretty much, but more of the image will be in focus (landscape photography for example).

Extras: Image stabilization, zoom, noise reduction
IS: two different types: in camera and in the lens. In lens IS is the best, the camera senses hand movement and makes minute immediate adjustments to the lenses in order to keep the light coming into the sensor stationary. When light hits the sensor, it basically draws the image on there. When you use a slow shutter speed, the light comes in for longer and thus the sharpness of the image is at the mercy of any movement at all of the camera.
Zoom: long zoom is great.. for outdoors. The longer you have your zoom out, the higher your lowest available aperture is. Also, it is much harder to keep the image steady when your zoom is out at all, thus making shooting in low light situations with your zoom difficult.
Noise reduction: Seems like a God-send right.. not exactly. Noise reduction will indeed eliminate the appearance of noise on your image, however it comes at a price. The more noise reduction used, the less detail you will have in your images. So cropping an image significantly becomes a problem at this point because even though there will be less grainy look to the image, you will have traded that for less detail, making crops not as sharp as the full origional image.

short conclusion: IS in the lens is great (the Panasonic models.. I dont know who else has it), but it cannot substitute for a tripod, but tripods will not be good for every situations you might find yourself in.

and this concludes the longest post i have ever made in this forum.. any questions feel free to ask, or make clarifications or whatever. I'm not a pro by any means, nor do I know everything (and dont mean to act like i do), but hopefully this will help out.