I use a Fuji S5 Pro but I cannot personally compare it to any other dSLR since the Fuji is the only dSLR I've owned. I bought it for its reputation; excellent dynamic range and JPEG quality. I'm happy to say that it's reputation is well earned, the camera is excellent. I'm told by someone who uses both that the Fuji's DR still exceeds that of the D700, and I can tell you from personal experience that the out-of-camera JPEGs (6MB) are amazing. The most PP I do is levels, +5% saturation, +10% contrast, +25% unsharp mask, done. That's it, the pic is perfect.
The camera is sold as 12 megapixels but it's really a 6-8MP camera. However (this is my understanding - I'm not a pixel person) it uses 6mp for shadows/medium tones and 6mp for highlights so you get a lot of tonal depth. It has a Fuji custom sensor that provides this great dynamic range and it means that you never have to use RAW (I don't know how to use RAW on the cam 🙂) and can go straight to JPEG with absolutely minimal post-processing as I've described above. Skin tones are excellent, and I'm told that it's the favorite camera of portrait and wedding photographers and I can believe it. What the S5 is not good for is action photography where you need to write very quickly to the CF card, like sports for example. If you're into that, get a D300.
I use two auto-focus lenses with mine, a Nikkor 17-55/2.8 DX zoom and the new 35/2.8 DX prime. I highly recommend both. The 35/2.8 DX costs $199 and produces very high quality images. As a user of some very expensive Leica glass I'm mightily impressed with it. No wonder it is flying off the shelves.
The Fuji S5 is not too big and clumsy, is reasonably quiet in operation, has terrific build quality, and has been completely reliable in my one year of ownership. I've set it up to give me a completely different experience from using a film rangefinder: no manual focus lenses, only AFS, simple operation - all I do is change ISO and aperture, OOC JPEG files of the highest quality, minimal post-processing. It is the perfect solution for what I use it for, mostly work, family and personal stuff requiring good quality color but very quick turnaround. It provides a really pleasurable counterpoint to my B&W RF film work and it's great to have those differences in both the workflow and the output.