I've been doing a lot of camera research and haven't really hard that many good things about the D40s even from Nikon guys. One big plus to the D40/D40x is the menu layout, it's really nice and I like the help button. Another down side to the D40 is that the lens it comes with doesn't have image stabilizer, or maybe I'm wrong? I know the XTI doesn't offer it, but the 450d Xsi does.
The 450D has a lot of nice features, its pretty much a 40D ($1000 for body only) but the 450D has a plastic body, 3.5 shots per second, VS I think 6 for the 40D.
Simon Says: "Buy a muthur FUc#!NG Nikon D40! So do it, or G*d forbid you take another great shot of your Honda."