First of all, thanks for your (very fast) answer
Since I'm a german citizen, the Kindle is currently not an option. That may, however, change after or during the Frankfurter Buchmesse (rougly translated as "Frankfurt Book Expo"); during the last days, some rumors spread that Amazon would be introducing the Kindle to Germany, and, if it's a success over here, maybe in all of Europe.
I also heard that the Sony PRS-505 will be introduced at that Expo as well, so we Europeans won't need to import the readers anymore if we cannot afford the 500€ (thats around 712 bucks in USD) for the iLiad book edition or the 600€ (855 USD) for the iLiad 2nd Edition ... compare those prices to the US prices and you'll soon feel the sour taste of being ripped off really bad ..
I've also rethought my wishes about the reader - comfortable (or the least uncomfortable) PDF support would actually be my top priority since most of my study books and research papers are actually PDF files.
So, I'll mostly use the reader for scientific work when doing research on history and writing essays, what do you think would be the best option ... waiting for a better reader to appear? Or going for one of the current-generation devices?