Tou are not the only one, my iLiad book edition arrived yesterday.
Your review is the exact impression I had when I played with it.
I found that there are problems with reading in poor light because the display is a little reflectivet, is like reading a book that has each page in a plastic cover.
Also, I find the notes application a little disappointing, I was expecting it to be at least as complex as "Paint" (if you can think of Paint as being complex), but I found that I can only draw "pen like" lines, no squares, no circles, no filling. Also the network is only on while you are connecting to iDS, but I think there is a walkthrough on this somewhere in the forums.
My 4Gb CF card will arrive today, I hope that I will not have any problem with it as it's not listed on the compatibility wiki, but I will update the list afterward.
And the 50 classic books that come with the book edition are very well chosen.