My 2 cents: any digital camera you get for $200 will be quite crappy, and you'll have no money left over for a tripod or lenses. If you want pictures you can really be pleased with, more than just holiday snaps, you probably need to spend about 500-700 (at the very least) on an oldish DSLR and a nice solid 50mm prime.... And then you've got an already outdated piece of tech, and one lens.

For that reason I reckon on your budget you should seriously look at film. $20 can probably get you an Olympus trip 35 on ebay, which is a fixed lens, super simple, compact piece of kit. It's a great street shooter, and its little zuiko 3.5 is even fast enough for moody night shooting if you load 400 film. Go on flickr.com/groups/olympustrip35/pool/ if you don't believe me. You can use flickr pools to check up on the results people get from a lot of cameras.

Alternatively you could get a canon a1 or a Pentax MX or similar SLR if you want to go a bit more "pro"... Might set you back more like $50, but then you'll have an SLR and you can start buying more lenses. Cameras like that when used properly can take excellent photos.

I know that there's the cost of film and processing, but you'd have to do a lot of it to get to close what you'd spend on a DSLR of even medium quality. I also know you can't just spray and pray, taking 500 shots in ten minutes on a film camera and choose the ten you like the most and delete the rest, but if I judge your intentions here, you're talking about art photography where you seriously think about each individual shot, not holiday snap style just blasting away. Film forces you to think about each image, and to make sure you get it right.

Furthermore, shooting film teaches you the principles of photography from the ground up, and that knowledge will make DSLRs with their myriad buttons and options and specs make a lot more sense should you go there later. Old lenses can also be easily used on newer cameras using simple adapter rings. Fwiw Pentax have used the same mount format since the seventies so you don't even need an adaptor.

Anyway, if you're dead set on digital, I guess there's some cybershot/coolpix enthusiast stuff that would create OK images but to be honest I have very little knowledge of that stuff. Maybe some people on here disagree.

Tldr: Olympus trip35 : $20 5x 4packs of fuji superia 35mm from Amazon: $55 Processing, depends where you live but let's say $5 a roll, x20= $100

So that's $175 for a camera and over 700 shots inc film and processing. If you wanna pay a bit more you can get an SLR like I said above, and dip into the world of interchangeable lenses, but honestly there's no rush. You can find alternatives to the trip easily by googling "budget 35mm rangefinder" and having a click around. Canonet, yashica electro, Minolta himatic, etc etc.

Let me know what you think :D