Aha, I did think before that the idea of a DSLR had not left the unkyUb mind for good.
Live View is an attempt to give the best of both worlds in the debate about whether it is best to use a viewfinder or the lcd screen for composing your shots.
As you will know, looking through an optical viewfinder on an SLR you are effectively looking through the lens at your scene..........the light comes in the lens, is reflected upwards by a mirror into the glass pentaprism housed in the big nobbly bit on the top of the camera and then out through the eyepiece, then when you fire the shutter, the mirror flips up out of the way and the light from the lens goes straight through onto the film plane or sensor.
On most slrs, however, what you see through the viewfinder is only a part of the scene, typically 95% or so, ..........to get a full 100% view you need a top-end job ( for top-end read expensive )
The live View thing lets you use the viewfinder as normal, but the scene is reproduced on the screen as well as through the viewfinder, but on the screen you get the full 100% coverage.
So you have the choice......either use the viewfinder, or use the screen or use the screen to make a final check on what the viewfinder has given you. Of course this latter has it's problems as if you compose through the viewfinder then check the screen.....you must either move your eyes from one to the other, or move the camera slightly to bring the screen into eyeshot.......thus spoiling the advantage as the machine is now looking at a slightly different scene ( unless of course it is on a tripod)
The wee screen on the Sony is on hinges and can be tilted and panned a bit away from the body but I don't know by how much and how easy it may be to see when in different positions.
The Sony has more than enough pixels built in, it has plenty of auto and semi-auto modes for ease of use and it does have image stabilisation.
The only downside I can see is that which we talked of before............your need because of mobility problems to use longer zoom lenses rather than hiking towards the more distant subject. The zoom bundled with the camera is a wide to shortish x3/x4 job but for more distant stuff you would again be having to consider additional longer lenses.
Good price, and a nice wee bit cashback from Sony..............this appears to be an introductory offer as the camera is a very new model.