Is digital zoom really all that bad?

It is BAD!

I sent my daughter off on a safari trip with my P&S (at the time that was the only camera I had). She "discovered" the camera had "digital zoom" and shot ALL her photos with that. She got some great shots but the quality was so poor that you could barely squeeze a 4x6 print out of them. I would have been much better if she had used optical zoom only. Most of the shots would have been acceptable with less zoom and then they could have been printable.