Not a stupid question, in my opinion. I think the problem would be getting any effective use out of another OS. My own (very personal and based on little in the way of fact) opinion is that we now have a very effective device that runs Android 1.6. It works as advertised, its not perfect and there are lots of things that many people want upgraded, but it works.

I believe that Android "sits on top of" Linux (and I surely could be wrong about this!). So, one might imagine Linux alone, but the UI would be so poor for something like Linux. The problem is upgrading the OS, without upgrading the hardware. My analogy is the original IBM PC, which ran DOS nicely. Then we wanted the latest and greatest upgrades, which ran oh so poorly. We needed new hardware. I think the same will be with the eDGe. It works now, it does what it is supposed to. But as new software is released (I am thinking of Honeycomb, Android 3.0, supposedly written to be effective on tablets) you simply wont be able to run it on the current eDGe devices effectively. Given that the eDGe is a novel device (2 screens, LCD + eInk) the question will be the viability of the company to release new hardware in the future that runs the new software (e.g. Android 3.0) effectively in an increasingly competitive market.

I think the solution will be to enjoy the eDGe as it is and stick with this hardware, and wait to see what new hardware will be released that runs future software effectively. While many of us anxiously await Froyo (Android 2.2), which probably will run OK on the eDGe, I think Honeycomb will be more of a resource hog just because thats the natural history of software upgrades.

I think you raised a very interesting point and I look forward to the prognostications of others in the eDGe community.