I am going to represent the Sony side of the conversation.
I got an A55 last year. I ended up upgrading the glass on it to a Tamron 18-200. The thing that sold me was the 1080 video with a continuous focus, whereas the Canon is only manual focus. Along with that the frames per second on the sony was nearing 8 and the Canon was at 4.5 at the time.
Being that we got this for shooting wakeboarding the decision was made for us, I also got some nice cheap Minolta prime lenses from
www.natcam.com for under $100 and they shoot great. I love the 1.7f 50MM. It is a great portrait lens.
Good luck with the choice, it will probably start a small obsession. Both would be great body's for what you want. Just figure out where your priorities are.