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Couldn't agree more, Chris. Another thing is that the public see Canon and Nikon cameras as being 'professional' and none of the others have that aura about them (leaving Hasselblad and Leica aside - different cases entirely).
Your points about Nikon and Canon are exactly right when it concerns Canada.... people look at you oddly if your camera is a different make... (I sometimes wonder whether they're thinking, "Oh, that's different - he must know his cameras" or "Oh, that's different, he probably doesn't know his cameras").
Mind you, you get some real equipment freaks here.... I was out photographing owls in the snow a couple of years back and met a Nikon user..... we talked about what kit he had (he wasn't vaguely interested in what I had). Got back home and priced up his camera gear..... he had been wandering around in the woods, at -5c, with about $15,000 worth of kit (about 8000 pounds at that time). I met him again this summer, in some different woods (I get around) and he had the same kit, plus new camouflaged camera and lens, clothing and backpack!
When it was all about film and the 'Big Five' (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta - in roughly that order) all of them had their pros and cons. But Minolta got swallowed up (not for lack of innovation but probably just drifted on lower sales and now they're into different things), Olympus come up with innovation, as you say - the 4/3rds, EVIL, Pen etc, and Pentax seem to just bumble along without much direction. Add the fact that Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Fujifilm, Ricoh have joined the market, Pentax, now part of Hoya, will remain in the doldrums unless they make an effort to undercut Canikon enough that the public actually notice, and/or get a FF camera to get at least up to Sony's sales (I'd love the A900). They recently introduced their medium format 645D and it's something like 11,000 pounds.
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