What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

I think I framed it best when I said if I can shoot my work with a smaller camera and it can do the above jobs very well then it will be worth changing to.

So you want a camera that is great for shooting

holidays, around the city, out and about around the countryside, in the garden, day trips etc

..so basically what your 60D does nicely, but you'd like a smaller camera so your wife would use it more?

Fair enough, yet I'd argue the compact package comes with a price usually (it's more fiddly than a normal DSLR) so this is actually putting off a lot of people I know / frustrating them in the long run as as it seems harder to get the camera to do what they want.

I think it would be smart to just make her more comfortable with the 60D if that's possible, have you considered getting one of the sweet tiny pancake primes that canon does - this might help with that.