Well I have finally seen and played with the new 350D... and I was somewhat unimpressed.
I know that a big deal has been made about it being the smallest, lightest dslr available. Having handled one today I'm not sure that this is a very good thing, when holding it to take a pic I found that my little finger kept slipping from the grip to the underside of the camera. The camera soon became uncomfortable to hold, that's after about 5-10 mins with it.
The body is very plastic, I know that the 300d is also plastic, but it does feel a lot better than the 350d. The weight seemed like it would also be an issue, even with the 18-55 lens that comes with it it seemed a touch lens heavy, so no doubt with a telephoto on the front this would be much worse. The burst photography did seem noticeably better than the 300d, a bit faster and a much better buffer.
The retailer also had pic taken on the 300d and the 350d both printed at A3 size and to be honest I could not see the difference in quality. I know it must be there as there is a 2mp difference but personally I think if I can print to A3 I won't be needing any more. I am sure for pro (though clearly that isn't the cameras target market) use 6mp would not do, but for personal use it's more than enough.
The viewfinder on the 350d seemed very small, I'm not sure if it is smaller than the 300d's or not, but it certainly seemed so.
I know that if I'd had more time to play with it then I would have been able to investigate the menus and setting as see if there was a big improvement there. However for me the fact that it didn't feel right in the hand is just to big an issue to ignore.
So having finally played with the 350d, which I've been saving up for since I heard about it's release (some of the record collection has been sold to allow me to buy one), I was so unimpressed that I've decided to save myself £150+ and go for the 300d instead. Well when I say save £150+ I really mean use it to start saving for a half decent telephoto.
My advice to anyone thinking of ordering one of these cameras would be to make sure you've tried one first. Others no doubt will find it comfortable to use, but I (and the two friends I was shopping with) certainly didn't.