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RPO has been sitting on my shelf as a DTB for months; I couldn't bring myself to either pay again for the ebook or pick up a DTB (I know, I'm spoiled). The compromise ended up being Wil Wheaton's audio reading, which was brilliant.
I didn't find the cultural references excessive--they were integral to the story, after all--but there were some pretty tedious infodumps about the tech which felt neither novel nor necessary. A lot of the tech seemed implausible and 'quaint' in the same futures-past sense as the silver-cigar rocketships of '50s sci-fi. The future youth dialogue also felt kind of dated sometimes.
As reflected in some of the comments about the ending, the story was mostly just a good enough excuse for trotting out some beloved antiquities of foregone nerdery, and delivering scenes like the eminently satisfying final mash-up battle. Don't get me wrong; the narrative is indeed good enough, and the scenes and juxtapositions for which it serves as a scaffold are well worth it.
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