When I see these sort of threads, I always hark back to my "usual" reply - buying it as a newbie with a "cheap" kit means two things:
You have to spend LOADS more to get set up initially - memory cards, bags, odd bits and bobs you cant really live without - it all soon mounts up.
You have to pour LOADS of time in to learn to use it - its just nothing like a compact at all in terms of ease of use. Steep learning curve and lots of wasted shots before you will be beating your compact for most things..
Then once you have got there you start to realise the lens you got as part of the kit is rubbish and doesnt go wide enough, zoom enough or focus close enough / fast enough for what you want to do. So you then spend a fortune on lenses + flashes and before you know it, you have spent well over £1000 on your "cheap" camera.
If you are into photography and have the money to burn jump at the chance - if you are hoping its a "buy once and get instant results" thing, please consider something like an S3 IS - you will be so much better off with one
EDIT:
"Features" on an SLR are generally the exact opposite of what you want - features on compacts make up for shortfalls on the cameras.
To get an extra feature, eg "Macro mode" you simply buy a macro lens at a cost of ~£300. Night mode? Learn to use the manual mode well and buy a good flash and learn how to use that and you have night mode!
Pictures straight out of the camera generally look "worse" too - you
need to post process images to bring out the colours and sharpness that little bit better - with a compact most of that is done via a chip in-camera
