[lubberts]

I definitely agree with the feelings of the original poster. After reading about the Kindle, personally, I was stoked. It sounded like there were a few downsides to the device, but more reasons to buy than reasons to avoid. I have more than one on the way, unfortunately esitmated to be here on or around the 10th of december, but it is on the way with no reservations nonetheless.
It felt like, everywhere I've read about the device (here, gizmodo, engadget, and the actual reviews on amazon) there was excess harshness about the device, and about Amazon. Most of the negative reviews I read were coming from people who have not ever owned an e-ink device for reading books in the past (and therefore do not have an accurate gage of what the other options are if you ARE going to own one, not just considering purchasing one), and from people who don't even own or haven't ever used the Kindle. At least that seems to be what I've noticed. That is a personal pet peeve of mine, if you don't have one, don't review one. Post your opinions in a forum by all means, but please don't review the product on the actual website. It's called a review. As in "review your EXPERIENCE with the product". It's not called a "why aren't you planning on getting one". grr. But I digress...
Honestly I don't understand all the hubub surrounding the DRM for the books, and the .azw format. I should mention though, I don't really get all fired up about drm'd music files either. It is the nature of the beast with electronic media in this day and age.

It seems like a circle, People are pissed at the DRM and format, because they want to get in on all the cheap multitudes of books that are going to be available, but do you really think that all of the publisher/authors would have agreed to make the multitudes available, or amazon would have decided to sell them at cheap prices if they did not have that same DRM and format? This is a business, not charity.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, and personally, I'd rather have tons of books to choose from to read on my one kindle device, than be able to read around 10,000 books I'm not interested in on any device of my choosing.
just my 2 cents.

As for the design, yes it's "butt ugly" as my nephew put it, but honestly, and forgive me if I over-generalize here, but as one the people who read enough books to truly justify the purchase of this device, are we really all that concerned with appearances? Really? I'm tidy, and not a slob by any means, usually I match...for the most part...at least I think I do...but I am no fashionista, I purchase my shoes at payless, or on sale, I judge the worth of a coat or pair of pants on the number and quality of pockets, and I'm not afraid to admit that I have purchased clothes at wal-mart and target on many more than one occasion. (the less I spend on clothing, the more I can spend on books, am I right?)
Realistically, if it were pretty, I'd probably get fewer odd looks while reading, but I've been getting odd looks while reading all my life, it really isn't going to deter me from enjoying the heck of my Kindle!
My iPhone gets noticed because it's pretty, I hope that people don't interrupt me in the middle of reading to ask about my Kindle like they do in the middle of conversations on my iPhone. So maybe the ugly is a benefit?
So, why is there so much...passion...about the kindle online? I can tell you it's not coming from me, and I noticed the outpouring of...opinions... as well, but I really have no explanation for it. Just more buzz this time around I'd suspect.