One thing to consider is also the battery, only the Pentax k2000 uses AA batteries. I don't know about you but I find battery life kinda limited on DSLR cameras, they all are only like 800-1400 mah and cost like 50 bucks. And it's almost a guarantee when I go out with friends and they bring their cameras that they always die, went on vacation, friend never got to use his camera because he forgot to bring the charger, me to the rescue with 3 extra sets of batteries for my camera and flash. 1 set of nimh batteries easily tops 2000 mah and is only like 10 bucks, so it's much more economical. I can usually shoot 800-1000 shots on my k2000 even with flash on I get at least 300. Also you can drop in AA batteries in a pinch. Plus I have a large shoe mount flash that uses AA batteries, and my backup compact uses AA Olympus sp-350. Better to consolidate your consumables.
Also my favortie thing about the Pentax is the in-body stabilization and lens compatibility, so you can use old lenses and still have rock steady pictures. With a steady hand 1/8 second portrait exposures are not an excersize in futility. I also got a perfectly good used 300 mm telephoto zoom lens for only 60 bucks. You can't hope for that with a modern in-lens stabilized zoom. I'd say with $1000 and judicious shopping you can get the K2000, 18-55 lens, telephoto zoom, macro lens, good quality flash, I like my Metz 48 AF-1. Even even get a used prime lens too, old manual style ones still have perfect shooting capability on digital cameras. Pentax's premium prime lenses are some of the best most respected ones on the market in terms of quality.