Actually the Panasonic DVX100b is less than a new XL1S and only a couple hundred more than a GL2, you should be able to get the DVX100b for $2500 or less, I think New Egg.com has them for $2399 or so. Anyway if you are going to do both self taping and videoing someone else the XL1 is not going to work for you.

I personally would stay away from hard drive as it is not as easy to capture for editing, also you have nothing backed up on tape, so if you run out of memory space you have to either upload it to your pc or have some other means of storage that gets expensive real quick. Stick with a camera in the mini dv tape format. Look for a camera that is a 3ccd, panasonic has a couple of consumer 3 chip models as does Sony, that run in the range of $650-900 probably more in your range? Also if zoom is a factor make sure to get something with a high OPTICAL zoom, DIGITAL zoom is worthless so don't even factor that in while browsing for cameras...............If hi def is something you might want Canon makes a decent consumer model that is 3ccd and has 10x optical for right around $950, A freind uses one as a back up camera and likes it fairly well I believe the model is HV 20.

What is the price range you are looking to stay within and exactly what type of features do you want the camera to have? That would narrow down your choices alot if you could give some more info.