On the digital photography forums, the Fujifilm FinePix F30 gets the most consistent raves. There's also a F31fd brother that has face-recognition focus priority. It's head and shoulders ahead of all the other point & shoots for low light performance, and the Fuji sensors deliver wonderful colors.
That said, for more money the Canon G7 is highly regarded, especially if you want total control. I just ordered a Nikon P5000, which is a toss-up image quality-wise with the G7, but is much smaller and has a familiar interface for me.
Good resource at
http://www.dpreview.com/