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I think Amazon will continue to limit Kindle service until they sell through their initial investment into the hardware. (Just because they're back-ordered, doesn't mean they haven't paid for more units than they have currently. And there's the design cost to consider, too.) After that happens, Amazon will have to decide if they want to stay in the cut-throat world of consumer electronics, or play to their strengths as book sellers. I think their best bet would be the second strategy -- open up the format more and sell as many books as possible to be read on as wide a range of devices as possible.
The only other potential obstacle I see is the book publishers, who may have demanded the tight lock on the Kindle hardware in order to allow their content to be sold. Hopefully they'll come to their senses soon as well, and realize that limiting customer use limits sales, and there's lots and lots of money to be made by opening up the limitations a little.
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