I bought a Sony Alpha 200, body only. The main reason being for the last 5 or so years I have beeen using a Minolta Dynax 5 and had built up various lenses and filters.
The Sony route provided me with a reasonably cheap way into DSLR. I could have gone for a good second hand camera from Canon or Nikon, but that would have meant throwing away perfectly good gear, and I didn't see the point in that.
I will still use film in the Minolta, but only b&w. There is just something about digital b&w that I don't like.