A short while ago I did some research on camcorders for the primary school that my gf works at. One thing I learned was that a USB2 connection on the unit is pretty useless. As far as I understood it transferring video through it will always cause quality loss as the camera will have to compress before sending it out. A Firewire connection on the other hand will be able to handle the full quality data stream, they are standard on the camcorders but you might need to get a Firewire card for your 'puter. They sell for peanuts compared to what the camcorder will cost you so there's no need to skimp on that.
The model we ended up with was a Panasonic NV-GS27. Small, easy to use and no unneccesary gadgets that they won't use anyway.