Ok I may be late as hell and you may call me a super noob but I just realized you can search the name of the camera on flickr and see a bunch of examples of what kind of pictures the camera takes.

 

No, you can see what kind of pictures the photographer takes.

I've seen crap come from a 1DSMKII and I've seen great shots come from P&S cams, it's what's behind the eyepiece that counts.

If you're looking for camera review sites try www.dpreview.com or www.steves-digicams.com

 

I like those sites and always check them out but they tend to always have the same examples. I wanted to see the potential of a good eye and some good lighting and the general quality of the picture in different hands.

 

Yeah, see, that's the thing.
If you are going to compare cameras through a picture, the only way to do that is if you had both cameras take the same picture under the same conditions. That usually means under a studio setting.

Many pictures 'just' require being in the right place, and shooting at the right time.
The most interesting pictures are pictures that would be difficult, if not impossible to take with another camera.

I tend to tell people that there's really no point in upgrading their camera unless they find that they simply can't take a picture they want with their camera. I have very few friends who have actually hit that barrier (although many don't try hard enough and just upgrade anyway).