I bought mine as a well-rounded media portal, something that would be serviceable for audio, video, and books, with web access and gaming as an afterthought. It was definitely CM7 and all the resources over at XDA that sold me, plus I appreciated that B&N made the NC so mod-friendly in the first place, directly counter to the "You'll use this device how we tell you to use it" approach of some competitors. I expected it to be primarily an e-reader in terms of time spent using it, but also wanted a single device I could take on the road without draining or tying up my phone (I hate calls and texts muting my tunes
).
I'm only two weeks in, but pretty happy with it on all counts. It does get a little uncomfortable as a reader as-is, mainly because of the hard plastic, but I have a case on the way that should improve things considerably, and I think most people using e-readers expect to use them with a case. I have played around with some games, too--SNESoid is pretty amazing.