Hey Null's camera spurging brought up my brand, Pentax! I don't do as much photography anymore but my K-7 still works fine after like twelve years. With DSLR's the main advantage you're getting is actually good lenses compared to smaller cameras as well as larger sensors. Really I don't think I'd pay too much attention to pixel peeking camera reviews, photography people have a tendency to sperg about equipment stats that don't really matter all that much.
If I were to buy another camera I think I'd probably just buy everything used. Probably get something with a full frame sensor, but that's not really necessary. Though if you have an APC sized sensor you'd have to keep that in mind when buying lenses since a full frame lens would be a higher effective focal length on an APC body.
You are limited to lenses made for the specific brand you go for but I don't think that's really a big deal for you, Null, when if I had to guess you're probably just gonna want maybe three lenses, 35~55mm kit lens, 50mm fixed lens, zoom lens, all of which any brand is gonna have some variation of. I don't think you're missing out on too much unless you want some specialized telephoto lens that only is made for Nikon mounts or something.
When you're in the US there's a place called
KEH camera that's one of the go to places for used equipment.
Something I do think you'd probably like, regardless of the camera you get, would be a
polarizing filter. Basically they let you cut out glare and reflections, really good for if you want to take pictures through a window too. Most filters just screw onto the lens, so just get a filter big enough for your largest lens and then use screw adapters to put them on your smaller lenses. I'd say don't cheap out on filters, it doesn't make any sense to put a cheap filter in front of a much more expensive lens.
