In fairness, it's also quite likely that in 3 years (or say 1.5-2) if you're the sort that's not shy about opening electronics you can replace the battery yourself...
However, FWIW my original sony reader prs-500 (purchased ~2 weeks after they were released) had a usable battery life ) right up to when I sent it to sony for a firmware upgrade 33 days ago (however apparently something broke during the time that they apparently lost my reader resulting in me no longer wishing to support sony). So I'm not too worried about the battery's life. (hence why I just pre-ordered a wireless kobo
) Erm, sorry for the mini rant, I'm still annoyed by $ony.
Really, I'm just thankful that kobo has given us something to buy other than the reader for those of us that like the idea of using a public library...