I moved from SLR to digital compact years ago and have found the live-view on the back screen to be invaluable when photographing insects. There are just so many situations where you want to hold the camera away from your body (to reach up or over flowers etc) and where a human looming over an insect with the camera pressed to his face would probably scare the insect away.
I'm not sure what the quality of the Sony Alpha range is but I'd look at it very seriously.
