I greatly appreciate the swift responses, and two bits of terrific news!
As much as I would love an eInk device (after seeing the Sony Reader at a tradeshow and thinking they had an enormous sticker on the screen like you see with radio alarm clocks quite often, faking a display - a remarkable departure from LCD), I would constantly be disappointed at the lack of an instant dictionary lookup function. That sort of thing, to me, is the real reason to eschew paper for an electronic device: enhanced functionality.
An ebook device should do more than just replace paper with a screen and have buttons for pages.
Thank you once again, neko and Jack, for the quick answers.

-p