Unfortunately, mid-end prosumer isn't my area of knowledge, but there are a lot of good cameras in that price range that look professional and record good quality 1080/60i footage to flash media. (All of them compress footage heavily, though, but "good enough" in most cases.) Generally, prosumer cameras don't have internal hard drives; that's more of a consumer camera feature.
Panasonic's hmc40 is well-liked and does 1080i, but it has a CMOS chip, which is the same kind of chip that gives the skew or "jello" effect with fast motion so it's not ideal for sports, but it should be okay if you shoot wide angle and use a tripod (CMOS cameras are bad for telephoto work and fast camera movement). It has a 40mm equivalent lens, which isn't very wide, though. The panasnic hmc-150 has a CCD for good motion and a 28mm equivalent lens (very wide for a prosumer camera), but it's expensive and only resolves about 720p detail, even in 1080p mode.
The xha1 is very nice and has a CCD that resolves full 1080i, but it records to minidv tapes, not hard drives. It has a 32mm equivalent lens, which is just okay.
Sony's FX-1000 is popular, too, but I know nothing about it. It has a CMOS sensor and it records to tape, but it has a wide angle lens (29.5mm equivalent) and true 1080i resolution. The Sony EX1, built on similar technology, is just about the best camera for the money, so this camera is probably great, but I've never met anyone who owns one. The EX1 is expensive and substantially more difficult to operate than other cameras in its price range, but this looks more normal. If you must record to hard drive, Sony sells a hard drive recorder for its HDV cameras, but I don't know anyone who uses one and it's very expensive and outdated for what it does and it may not even be compatible with newer cameras (
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._HVRDR60_Hard_Disk_Recording.html#accessories ).
Hard drive recording (excepting uncompressed or prores capture for studio work, which is obviously not iMovie compatible) is really a consumer feature (tape or media card cameras are more professional), so it looks like there's no perfect camera for you, but a lot of good options. And there are good wide angle adapters available for most prosumer cameras, but they are expensive, especially if you want zoom-through (not limited to widest focal length).
And for those judging on the basis of image quality alone, the hv30 beats even the last generation of high end cameras (hvx200, etc.) in straight-up image quality, but its low light is inferior, it has bad skew, and it has a clumsy interface with limited manual control (no independent aperature/shutter speed adjustment, etc.)
