Actually JCL, if done properly and obviously needs practice, DSLRs produce incredible results straight out of the camera that P&S cannot match. I am no expert at this but a tinkerer and have achieved astonishingly good results with little to no post processing.
PS: By full manual I meant, manual focusing as well. All my lens except one are manual lens (no auto focus). Most are fast primes or fast zooms (70-200mm F3.5) Here is an example of a 50mm macro with default sharpness, ISO-400, Shutter at 1/125, F1.4 (I am guessing here) with a 2X converter, cropped and re-sized for the web. With DSLRs do not be afraid to bump up the ISO to 800 to get a faster shutter speed.
Sorry to hijack the OP's thread.