which in my opinion is unjustified.
One another interesting observation: take a picture by a Canon, open in Photoshop, do auto-levels, auto-contrast and auto-color, the picture often looks almost unchanged.
What it tells me, is that, Canon has a photoshop built in. Which is both a good and a bad thing, depending on if it's a casual user or a serious amateur.
Colors can be improved by post-processing (well, not every time), but the furry or rusty textures cannot be recreated in a lab.
My canadian 2 cents :)