THAT CLOSE to awesomeness...
A bit of lens bloom by your plate, and seeing the burnout from the reflectors on your bags, your flash fired to give you fill flash. Awesomeness perhaps still possible with a bit of photoshopping (I am not a photoshop guy, but I've seen the before and after on many pics correcting exposure, color balance, removing oopsies and Uncle Fred, etc).
I know a tiny bit about photography, so I will throw a few opinions your way, worth about exactly what you paid for them.
First, those pics don't look too bad, but I assume you did a bit of culling (major photography hint: shoot lots, cull remorselessly - we're only killing electrons these days folks). If you are getting intermittent out of focus pics, I would suspect the focusing system first, not the lens group. Most compacts use contrast detection AF, where the actual sensor drives the focusing. That may indicate that the problem is simply a dirty sensor - the disadvantage of a compact is, unlike a DSLR, you can't clean (carefully!) the sensor yourself. Go see a reputable camera shop; depending on what you paid for it and their pricing, a cleaning may be an option.
Second, my bias: I loath cameras other than DSLRs. I wish I didn't - a camera that will go in a shirt pocket is a wonderful thing. And I have tried many of them, hoping to find one that I can happily ply my photography vice with (see: http://tinyurl.com/22kfbh8 ). But capturing the views where I ride is one of the big reasons I ride to begin with, and I just haven't found a point and shoot that does it for me. The biggest thing is probably that an LCD screen is just not the same as through the lens, but manual focus, preview, etc... I need a DSLR to keep me from Jones'n. For me, the extra bulk of a DSL is not that big of a deal - it has it's place in my tank bag, and I don't even think about it anymore.
So I think DSLRs are worth considering, although most people would still go to a pocket point and shoot. The new breed of Pentax, Nikon, etc DSLR cameras also have very, very impressive high quality video capabilities - so much so that I am thinking of selling my relatively new K10d for the new Pentax K7 - Pentax makes about the only water and dust resistant DSLRs that ordinary folks like me not obsessed with photography can afford... I have killed a couple of Canon's and Nikons and am not going back.
A peak at what I'm looking at, and an excellent site to look at for reviews of cameras:
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/pentaxk7/
A review versus the technical overview above:
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2010/03/18/pentax-k7-camera-review-in-photos/
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/K7/K7A.HTM
All for under $1000! Anyone want to buy a newish K10d complete with two very nice zooms?
A comment with DSLRs. Unless you're obsessed with small size, do not rule DSLRs out. Nor be faked out by what at first glance seems for some to be a bewildering number of controls. If you like taking nice shots - and now that we're no longer burning holes in our wallets shooting 35mm film as we learn our camera and improve our skills - shooting lots of pics while messing with the controls will quickly have you figuring out what to use and how to use it, and the features that you never really use (most cameras have a few of those). And of course, you can always fall back to the default "green zone" that most DSLRs have where the camera makes the choices on settings.
And a comment on digital cameras in general: megapixel count for the sensor is not the be all - end all. Think of it as somebody looking at a camera with fewer megapixels and thinking "oh, it's only 8 megapixels" as the same as the guy who looks at a WR and goes "oh, it's only a 250". Megapixels are not a measure of image quality, only of the final image size. In short, I would rather my camera had a razor sharp 10 megapixel sensor than a better than average 14 megapixel sensor. Of course, I'd rather have a razor sharp 14 megapixel sensor above all...
Anyways, if you're still stuck on a pocket digital, the folks at Adorama are very competitive, very trustworthy (the New York online camera store business is full of fraud artists and shady grey market dealers), and have just about every camera available today.
Just as two examples, you can pick up some high quality compacts that have been refurbished by the manufacturer, for a fraction of what you would have paid new (not a bad thing, similar to buying refurbished GPS units from Garmin which I've found to be a swingin' deal).
http://www.adorama.com/INKCPS4000SR.html
Or you can shop for something like you were talking about - the Pentax compacts are also well known for being very waterproof, dustproof, vibration proof, etc, just like their big brother DSLRs. Here is one which would be one of my final contestants if I could learn to love the compact point and shoot:
http://www.adorama.com/IPXOW90GR.html
Awesomeness for $200 - Chuck Norris probably has one.
I might even have to buy one simply to have a camera capable of being used underwater once again - as long as I don't swim below 20 feet.
I've kind of sidetracked on your ride report. If you prefer, I can always split this off into a new thread elsewhere.
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Love the 'feet.' 
Not sure what you have but all my pics were taken with a Canon PowerShot A520. Good little camera and small. 
