Canon is pretty damn good. Though the quality has gone down slightly on their compacts in recent years they are still my first choice when buying any camera equipment. I've had two Elphs (SD series) and have a 400D SLR. If you want to see their entire lineup, this is the place to go...
Canon Digital Cameras: Digital Photography Review actually, DPreview is the place to go for all digital camera info.
For versatility you usually want to get the widest angle lens over extreme zoom on most compact cameras. Sometimes, depending on the model, you can find an nice balance of both. Don't get something that has a minimum 35mm or 37mm lens, because it will be much less useful in close up indoor situations where you can't back up far enough.
In this case the newest Canon in the SD series, the SD980, has you covered at both ends with 24mm wide angle and 5x optical, or 120mm zoom. The reviews are pretty good on this camera but not the best I've ever read. It's $299.
While not an SD model, the Canon S90 looks very nice. It has a 28mm-105mm lens. The reviews are very good. It has more features and and it sounds like superior image quality over the SD980, but is also about $100 more at $399.
Other people have recommended the SD1200 (not the newest model BTW, they don't number them chronologically) but it only has a 35mm-105mm lens which isn't nearly as versatile as the other two models above.
While not cameras from a traditional camera maker like Nicky pointed out, the Panasonic Lumix line has quite a few decent cameras with the Lumix ZS1 and ZS3 coming HIGHLY recommended by many people I've spoken to. The image quality is supposed to be superb. The reviews on Dpreview for them are also very good. The perform very well in low light conditions and the ZS3 is up there in the Superzoom category with a 25-300mm lens and also shoots 60fps 720p video.
Read the roundup here...
'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2009) Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review
Skip to the conclusions page here...
'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2009) Review: 16. Conclusions and ratings: Digital Photography Review
Even though I'm a Canon fan at heart, if I were picking up a new compact right now this is probably the camera I would get.