I think you have to decide what's practical and what's important Tom.
I'm no expert in these type of cameras but if you want something that won't break the bank, is easy to use, not too bulky so you can put it in the wife's handbag, and you just want to record simple fly on the wall type family stuff, then something like this should give decent results. They're designed to do what you intend - not arty farty, you just need to capture standard stuff and aren't concerned about winning a BAFTA. You generally don't have to worry too much about the focus or white balance, most camcorders these days handle that fairly well, unless you're zooming and panning quickly and consistently. I'd ask for a demo in store if you can...see how it performs with a mixture of lighting conditions, light and dark, and panning between indoor and natural light. And listen to how it SOUNDS. Some of the built in microphones on these camcorders aren't very directional and pick up a lot of background noise, and unless you're pretty close to your subject they can sound a bit tinny or it can be a strain to hear what someone's saying because of ambient noise.
Not ideal for quickly grabbing when you want to film something in a hurry - but if you're confident and want to make this more of a serious hobby, demo a few DSLR cameras. I'd love to have one of these as the lenses are generally better with a greater depth of field, but you need to practice a bit to ensure what you want is in focus. The full frame sensors can often shoot video to 4k or 8k resolution, which isn't something you really need now but will look cracking in a few years time when we've all got 100 inch UDH tellys. Importantly, if you're serious about taking decent stills as well, this should ensure you'll be able to print off photos up to poster size if you want. Again, if you can, get the store to set it up properly for shooting a bit of video and try and see what it's like on a big HD telly. The images would be great, but you need to make sure there isn't any rolling shutter or cranking problems, which some cameras don't adapt to very well (you'll see a strobing effect on a "normal" interlaced TV).