Lots of people have down-played this upgrade as being very minor, but for me it made sense. I had bought my 20D second hand and I liked it. It appeared to be in excellent condition and had not yet shown any signs of malfunction.
However, I felt my 20D was a bit like a ticking bomb as regards the remaining shutter life. In addition, the 1.8" LCD display was really too small for my ageing eyes to read comfortably and it didn't have spot metering, which I have have found useful on some previous cameras.
I sold the 20D and bought a 30D on Ebay. My first 30D was a dud and displayed the dreaded Err99 as soon as I tried to use it. However, the vendor was very good about it and offered either to refund my money or to send me another 30D that he had available. He even sent me the money to cover the cost of returning the faulty 30D to him. I gladly accepted his offer of an exchange camera and so I now have what appears to be a fully functional 30D in very good condition. It does smell of tobacco but I don't mind that because I used to smoke until recently anyway.
I regard this as 90 bucks well spent. Even though I realize it's really just a 20D with refinements, they're important refinements to me.