Sweetpea, you're clearly happy with your Fire. I don't own a tablet (yet) but the differences are obvious. You downplayed a couple (no camera, no GPS). Add to those longer battery life (several hours more, even with the larger screen), more memory, and a stronger App store. Apple's iCloud approach is reasonable (and should be pretty sound in the next revision) and applies/shares to all iOS devices (phone, tablet, PC).
You can slice the value proposition any way you like. For you the Fire sounds like a better device. For others the iPad has its charms.
Oh, and a recent customer satisfaction survey gives the nod to the iPad as well (74 versus 54%, unknown polling conditions) --
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/0...action_survey/