Well, I just walked through the specs and I don't see the Vox as inferior to the Fire in any way. In fact, by the specs at least, there's some very distinct advantages. The AFFS+ screens are what's used in airline cockpit displays - specifically for their daylight visibility. And like all previous devices, Kobo's been smart by including the SD card slot. This means you can take your music and vids where there's no WiFi. Can't do that with a Fire. Vox also supports Exchange ActiveSync email. Fire is POP3 / IMAP only. And then of course, there's that EPUB support bit.
Oh, and don't be fooled for one second by processor specs. My Android HTC G2 has a 800 MHz CPU with 512 RAM and it plays HBO and Netflix flawlessly. 800 MHz is
plenty for this device.