What Has Happened?

I once read a phrase "It is the person behind the camera matter rather than the camera itself", and it is a good phrase I guess considering the whole idea of digital photography where everyone seems to have digital SLR. And with Canon and Nikon announced their latest digital SLR, the Canon 50D and Nikon D90, the phrase is rather dull, old, and boring.

These days, everyone keeps following the technology in the camera industry and forgets about the image quality they produce. In my opinion, camera should not be the next iPod, where the things just keep updated very frequent that everyone just get consumed in the whole marketing and the commercialism of the industry.

My question is, what has happened? Where did the passion on the image lost? And when? Photography should not be about the gadget, it is about the image and the object and the whole idea of telling a story. And please underline my intention, PHOTOGRAPHY SHOULD NOT BE THE NEXT iPOD.