Why can't I get pictures out of my 60D as good as a Sony A450

I've been a Minolta then Sony user for ages. Had a used D7, then an A300, an A100 and A450. I still have the A300 and A450. I've always liked the picture quality but the lack of proper bracketing for HDR was annoying me and in the absence of a frimware upgrade for the A450 I looked elsewhere. I part ex'd some lenses and at first got a Canon 1100D and was pretty impressed go decided to sell more stuff and a couple of guitars and buy the 18mb 60D - and the the problems began.

No matter what I try I can't get photos out of the canon that look as good as the 14mp A450. The colors are flat (ok I can boost saturation) but it's the highlights that are the problem. The sky seems to burn out where the Sony record detail, actually to the point that if you edit the Sony raw files you can bring out a nice sky nut the Canon pics still are just white.

On the Canon I have a canon 18-135 and it's supposed to be a reasonable lens but on the Sony I have a 16-105 which is of course supposed to be a very good lens, and I'm not sure if that is the problem. Unfortunately Canon don't do a lens as useful as the 16-105 (and you might be surprised at the difference that 2mm makes!). I might put this in the Canon forum too.

So, has anyone else considered or moved to Canon and regretted it?

Oh, and the other reason I was kinda looking at Canon is I'm not keen on Sony dropping optical viewfinders - but of course at the end of the day it's the picture quality that counts and I didn't expect an A450 to seemingly beat a Canon 60D (which is a much more expensive camera).