I'm shooting with a 5(?+) year old 1 chip 480k CCD Sharp Viewcam, capturing with a VIVO card, and editing on a 1.3Ghz Athlon Thunderbird/512MB machine. It will look pretty crappy compared to film, it will be edited with nice transitions and as clean as I can make it but its not like people are going to look at the video quality and say "whoa, that looks like film!". But thats not the point, anyone can go and rent a s35 camera and buy some stock and get the lighting right to make it look good, but good cinema can be shot with webcams and are more watchable than the s35 stuff IF THE STORY IS GOOD.
To me, making the DV and putting it up against the others at our local festival is enough for me to take the risk of it looking like crap, because I know someday that I will have a budget at my disposal to get the better equipment, but will I use it to make pretentious fluff that nobody watches or good quality storytelling like I've done with the MiniDV? Thats why Im shooting with MiniDV, to learn. It probably wont go to the other festivals unless it wins the first one in which case it is getting reedited anyway. Besides, since I already own the camera and various equipment it needs, why pay a lot of money for celluloid when I can make my 8 minute sweeping story for $250, most of which is going to buy food for the cast and crew and stock?
The point being if you are trying to learn how to make your films and you have a good script to shoot, go for it. If you are done learning and ready to take something to Sundance or seek distrobution, you'll want to look into getting a 24p camera at the least or a 16 or 35 camera at the best. But don't for a moment confuse the two, You're not going to make an epic on a D8 and have it turn into wide release next year. Even given that very unlikely scenario your video and audio will have to be remastered.