[StevoRocket]

Serge

The problem that Nikon had was they were quite a bit later to market with the D70 than Canon were with the Digital Rebel, they had the Nikon D1X for professional use but it was way too expensive for the enthusiastic amateurs, so when they brought out the D70 it had to be better than Canons offerings and it had to be faster to operate than the existing SLR's from Fuji and Pentax. Even if it was as good as or better in some areas than the D100.
Processing chips were in any case faster, newer Compact flash cards had bigger capacities and were faster and Nikon thinking was being influenced by other parallel developments. So now they have the D2x for professionals. And 8megapixels for Prosumer models with fixed zoom lenses.
These web sites review the D70. Good second opinions.
Find them on the last page of the Steves-digicams.com site.

LetsGoDigital's D70 First Look

DP Review's D70 review

Imaging-Resource's D70 review

DC View's D70 review

DC Resource's D70 review

Megapixel.net's D70 review

The bottom line is that the D70 with the 18-70mm lens package is a superb camera/lens combination and with a few Ebay purchased other lenses (like a 28-300 Tamron or Vivitar zoom) gives the 35mm equivolent of 27- 450mm with just two lenses.
My D70 line up is....
Nikon D70
18-70 AF Nikkor - with the camera purchase
28-300 Tamron AF XR DI 1:3.5 - 6.3 - new purchase
35-300 AF Tokina 1:4.5-6.7 - off my 35mm Nikon F50 (to be sold)
50mm AF Nikkor 1:1.4 used - ebay
20mm AF Nikkor 2.8 used - ebay
70-210 AF Nikkor Micro 1:4-5.6 - used - ebay
28-80 AF Nikkor - off my 35mm Nikon F50 (to be sold)