Canon has been so much more innovative in developing bodies and lenses than Nikon there is almost no comparison.
Nikons are still somewhat limited by the very old mount design, Canon didn't make any friends with their FD users when they switched to the EOS mount (except for those of us now who like buying cheap Canon FDs for our GH1s) but the EOS mount is so far superior to the Nikon mount they almost aren't worth comparing and this allowed Canon to make huge leaps over Nikon in the last bit of the 80s and early 90s - Canon went from basically having no AF bodies to having the EOS-1 + Canon L glass with ultrasonic motors and remarkable TTL flashes in a single generation and Nikon didn't catch up with that for years. Not too long after that, we started to get our first image-stabilization lenses - again, Canon did it first.
So if you were getting into Canon at that time, yeah, you're probably a bit biased - I think Nikon is catching up to an extent but having used both, I've never found Nikon lenses to be better than the best Canon L lenses. I own both Nikons and Canons and could do what i do using either...but from a technological standpoint, and a lens standpoint, I think Canon wins if only slightly, but it's not like it happened as an accident, Canon had to do some things better in order to beat out Nikon which was heavily entrenched in the photojournalism world at that time and Canon, as part of its philosophy, appears more interested in creating exotic lenses (either superfast, tilt/shift, etc.) than Nikon, so that has appeal for some as well.
You're absolutelly right. What bothers me is the arrogance, at least here in Brazil.
like... "hey babe, look my EOS1D with my White tele lens" lol
I used some L lenses in the past and they are really amazing... maybe soo much superior than the old FD stuff? (I don't have any experience with the FD lenses)
Actually my primary "stills" system is the Sony Alpha with some Minolta "G" glass and I think they are on par (if not better) than the Canons.
