basic point and shoot

[chimpanz33]

After many years, I am finally looking to replace my trusty point and shoot camera (pentax optio s51). My old camera still works well, and meets my needs, and my reason for buying a new camera is that Pentax is not providing software for this camera for post XP versions of Windows.

I have been researching for hours, and am more confused than ever. As far as I can tell, I am doing alright no matter what I buy, but I would love to hear any advice that might help me narrow my search.

Parameters of my search are:

1) $100 to $200 (preferably around $150)
2) good macro, and low light performance are important to me (insofar as they are available in this price range)
3) I would prefer that there be a minimum of invasive software (I prefer to use a USB cable, and the windows filesystem to transfer photos)
4) not too fragile
5) I would like to avoid proprietary or uncommon cables/batteries/memory cards (not sure if this is even issue with new cameras)
6) ability to tether the camera to my computer for capturing images for stop motion animation would be nice (perhaps all cameras can do this).
7) some video and manual focus/settings capabilities would be nice, but the basics will probably suffice.

Thanks for your time!