I bought last saturday my first DSLR camera: a Nikon D40x kit with two lenses (a 18-55mm and a stabilized 55-200mm zoom). Kit lenses generally aren't top quality, but I didn't wanted to spend a huge amount of money, and those ones have received pretty good reviews.
I was increasingly frustrated by the quality of my little Canon Ixus. Not that bad for souvenir pictures, but really not for nice crafted pictures. I've played with my new toy during the week-end, and what a change! I used to have a SLR when cameras were still using films, but the roundtrip-time between shooting and viewing the result with a film doesn't ease in learning the effect of the various parameters. With a DSLR the rountrip time is seconds and cost is zero. Ideal for fast trial-and-error learning.
In just a day, I also found out that having a powerful camera leads to having a different look at what's around. There are so many picture opportunities at any time and any location! Hmm... I need to have a closer look at these 1TB hard drives...