Cheers guys, it's so nice to finally be able to create what I was looking for, instead of struggling with a half hearted camera.
I know that feeling. I went from an inexpensive Kodak bridge camera, which produced reasonable photos, to a Sony Alpha 100 and all of a sudden I could capture what I wanted, not just what the camera thought I wanted.
Just being able to focus on what you want, using the focus points or manual focus, makes a huge difference. Then the ability to get the depth of fields exactly as you want and the shutter speed as you want.
There are tons of lenses for the Alpha cameras, lots of them very good and cheap.
The Alpha 100 and 200 are based on the Minolta designs (which were pretty decent) after which Sony started to build on that and make improvements.
Carry on enjoying your Alpha.
If you're not on flickr, join up and mix it up with the Alpha groups.