I've been amateur photographer for 20 years, starting of with film, and then SLR digital for the last 4 years.
To get into SLR digital photography, really needs a desire to learn a bit of tech, to get the best out of it. The tech learning is a basic requirement, IMO.
I have a P&S Canon, actually, my daughter does, which has video capability, just about good enough to use on a PC/mac very easily, and the 'still' quality is acceptable at all but the extreme enlargement scales.
Super-zooms, tend to use image enlargement by digital means, which CAN have a detrimental effect in image quality, again, at large magnification, BUT, for most people's use, is good enough.
I would argue that if your able to buy the low-end 'pro-sumer' SLR's, and WANT to learn some basic photo 'tech', that's the way to go - if you have any reason NOT to want to do this, buy the best P&S, with the highest 'OPTICAL' magnification you can afford.
HTH, PM me if you wish for more OPIONION!