Good camera?! Bah! It's all to do with the eyes of the person taking the shots. While a decent camera can help, there's certainly nothing to stop those willing to learn and persevere from attaining excellent results from a basic compact.
Chris: I'll let you know once I've had it out and about- hopefully the weekend, weather and circumstances permitting. First impressions are great though- it's not super-light, but its the next best thing to the Carbon tripods out there, and the head is brilliant. It's all very well screwed together too, and the swivel stalk is very well designed- could be a killer feature that, especially for Macro work.