This is pretty much what Kobo faced when they introduced the Vox. A lot of users got around those limitations by sideloading their own apps. It is a fair compromise: the vendor is trying to sell a user experience, both in terms of function and ensuring that the available apps will operate properly on it. The consumer still has the option of bypassing the vendor's limitations.

That said, I replaced my broken Aura with a PRS-T1. I had CoolReader and Aard dictionary installed on it within two days. (The only reason why it took that long was because I was moving at the time.) I still have to figure out how to shoehorn the Wikipedia on the reader without buying a huge SD card though.