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I would prefer a device that was open for many of the reasons in the article. Yet, I don't think the Kindle will fail because of its closed architecture.
Right now there are far more books in the .azw format than there are in the ePub format, plus the corporations that own the content (O'Reilly excepted) seem to want DRM (at least for now). Plus, proprietary formats sometimes win and open formats lose. For example, the UNIX operating system has been an open system for a very long time but most people buy PCs with Microsofts proprietary operating system. Also, the IE browser completely dominates the browser market. It probably wouldn't take much thought to come up with several more examples.
If anything, I'd say the ebook/Kindle market is analogous to the video game/game player market, and all the game players have proprietary systems. I suppose games designed for PCs would be the equivalent of an open game playing platform, but it was the Wii people were buying for Christmas.
In the long run I'd bet on open systems and DRM free content, but I think it will probably take a while to get there. In the short run, proprietary formats help to establish a market, and in the case of ebooks that is a good thing.
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