I agree with some of your points but disagree with others:
"Limited, over-priced selection from Sony."
I agree but hopefully that will change if enough people buy the reader. In the meantime you can find most books cracked on line. Personally, I hope that they become available from most sources so that we can feed the industry bu t in the meantime I won't shy away from a cracked copy.
"Limited contrast. That's right - it really is dark gray on light gray, and contrast gets worse in low light. The resolution is fine, but for those who think it's the best there is - my iPAQ, at 4" 640x480, has 200ppi _in color_, compared to the Sony Reader's 170ppi."
Although the contrast worsens in low light, as long as you light your page as well as you should light a paper page, the image is very good and very soft on the yes. much better for my eyes than paper. A backlight IPAQ would blind me in no time not to mention the smaller reading space.
"No backlight. Don't tell me adding a light will ruin battery life, or I should get a head-lamp - I'm used to readers with backlights, and both have had a perfectly usable battery life. I don't _need_ to go months between charging. Jeez, just plugging it into your PC to add some content ends up charging it. BTW, I have a head-lamp, a lightwedge (hate it), and a flex-neck clip-on (love it for paper books). The Sony reader has a real glare problem when used with a book light."
Disagree with you completely. A backlight would be awful. A side light or light bar would be fine but I can get it after market. None of my books have ever come with a backlight so why should my e-book. Also, I want a month's battery life so that it is always there for me. If I "have" to charge it then it is useless.
"Poor management software. CONNECT Reader is buggy and limited."
100% agree. Then again, no real competition in that category from any other product using e-ink.
"So-so ergonomics. Others have remarked on the lack of page buttons for one-handed, right-handed holding."
Agree.
"Book display has many problems. Why such a large margin in "The Constant Gardener" - that's totally wasted space, requiring more page turns. Three text-size selections is not enough. Lack of HTML rendering is a real deficiency. The RSS feeds I tried are formatted way to poorly to try and deal with. PDF page turns can take a long time. All this adds up to "HALF-BAKED".
Agree. Formats need to be made easier to implement. Again, get more readers into people's hands and that should follow.
"Slow screen refresh. Not much of a problem when reading, but a real hindrance to navigating menus."
Never met a device that could not be faster.
"Just my opinions, of course..."
You raise some good opinions. However, I think that the e-reader is "good enough" for a first e-ink device. The more we encourage others to adopt it, with all of its flaws, the more that we can mainstream the market and the better that the devices will get. So get out there and recommend
the heck out of it.