With a few snips from your post Arg, a few things rear their heads.
Market = more than likely private property. You don't really have any right to record anything there unless you have specific permission to do so.
Market stall holders = (sometimes) very shy about "their merchandise" being photographed especially brand name shoes and DVDs
I regard their attitude to your camera as being fairly normal and just because you waved something "big" in front of their face and caught their attention is not symptomatic of DSLR unfriendliness but merely suggests that you were doing something that you really shouldn't have been doing in the first place and you now have your nose out of joint because others got away with it.
- - - Updated - - -
I reckon the answer depends on the final output of the file from the camera.
If you intend to keep plenty of hard drive copies and share web resolution images then both will do a great job. If you want to print images especially at large sizes then I feel that the DSLR will provide you with more satisfactory results.