Why get a camera that suits perfectly? I think its better to get a camera that exceeds a person's level of knowledge so that they improve and progress as a videographer.
If you want something you can just point and shoot, and don't really have any interest in filming other than to get "proof" of tricks or whatever, then I would suggest an HV40. But if you want to actually learn how to manually set up a camera, then there is no better camera than the DVX series. This camera gives you more control over the image than most HDV cameras that were available at the time of its release (I'm not sure about now, or if people are even stuck using HDV still).
As for it being obsolete... it's only obsolete if you want it to be obsolete. I was watching some footage from my DVX on my 1080p LCD TV and it was comparable to the HVX footage I've seen on it. One can argue that there is no comparison but in my opinion the difference is very miniscule. 720p or 1080p really isn't the high resolution everybody hypes it up to be; it's all relatively "standard definition" anyway...
