I think the issue for being popular with tech-students is that it's not that well known. I'd never heard of the edge until I went seriously looking into e-readers. I think of the eDGe can gain some traction, and starts being heralded as a fairly hackable device, more people will be interested.

If I end up getting an eDGe, I'd be willing to help out on the hacking stuff, but as it stands I don't have one.