Oh man, I wanted one of those Franklin eBookMan things back in the day.
I did some limited ebook reading on my first Palm devices, a Palm III that my former boss gave me that broke within a few months, and a Tungsten E2. It wasn't until I got a Treo that I really got into ebook reading, which is odd as it is a smaller screen. It wasn't the device but the timing--it was the device I was using every day when I was really ready to get into ebooks.