Well I opted for the Nook Simple Touch (with Glowlight) in the end. So far I can say as a vanilla device it sucks as compared to the old Sony PRS-T1!! Resizing of text doesn't appear to work for pdfs, nor does the dictionary lookup! Text hardly taking up much of the screen and no way to adjust or even change view orientation to improve readability! The Sony as default did actually have some very nice features, which all worked as well with pdfs as with any other filetype it supported (in fact it reportedly having best pdf handling was the main factor in me choosing it initially a few years ago.)
But luckily it is meant to be good for rooting!!
Although so far not had a chance as not managed to back it up (at no fault to the device itself.) Haven't managed to get a MicroSD->SD card adapter and the USB multi-card reader I bought appears to be faulty and my cards aren't readable on it from either my Linux or Doze partitions.
Sure once I get it rooted and get used to it I will fall in love with it though. Still very good to have books at my fingertips in a nice, light, pocket-sized device and having a light for reading in the dark is definitely a bonus I appreciate