Quite a few of the compacts have really good little lenses Veg, Canon, Fuji, Panasonic, and Sony have good ones maybe not as good as an SLR but there again then are probably 1/5th of the price
The Powershot range are popular. Have a look and see if they take converters, some of them you can buy a converter that fits to the front of the lens to increase the magnification, that will give a little more flexibility.