Elfwreck:
Complete agreement with you, the Beagle is definitely not what the market is looking for.
But a small, compact generic ebookreader, in the same tradition as today's generic MP3 players? That could be cool and relatively simple:
Probably linux based that can read epub and mobi, with a card slot, running on replaceable AA batteries and a small eink screen, in the $40 range now, dropping to $20-25 in a couple of years as the tech matures and costs go down...perhaps partnered with a prominent indie retailer (I'm looking at you, Smashwords or Baen
) ... I really think that would be a hot commodity and cheap enough that it would open up ebooks to a lot of people who would never consider a dedicated ereader, even at the lowish current $69 Kindle price.