Yeah it will be the new "family camcorder" for years and years to come with a lot of footage shot with intention of keeping indefinitely. Storage at home for permanent archiving isn't an issue at all with TB's upon TB's to spare in my home SAN, so the formats offered by these two are pretty much spot on (AVCHD)
Go for it, Although something with an interchangeable lens would be nice, the features on the Sony are pretty good.
I thought about that too, but those are always so much bigger. I'm thinking disney trips and stuff, lugging it around will obviously be daddy duty and the lighter and more mobile the better IMO
There are some smaller corders made for interchangeable lenses I think. I haven't really looked at cameras lately since picking up my 5d