if your client will be primarily shooting indoors and does not wish to spend time learning about lighting and buying a light kit, if you're going with CCD the most important things will be the size of the CCD and size of the lens. bigger CCDs allow more light into the camcorder and so does a bigger lens. most consumer/prosumer camcorders or even digital cameras are not great in low-light conditions because they generally have small CCDs (1/6 or 1/5 of an inch each) and a smaller lens opening.

i don't see a point in going with a harddrive rather than mini dvs from what you've said, and although i'm not an expert, i've been doing a lot of shooting. if you are trying to stay within a budget and get the best camcorder you can perhaps you could consider mini dv camcorders.

what will your client do with these videos - will he/she need HD?