I imagine most of those users already had iTunes accounts, or knew how it worked, and so were prepared for that end of the process. Your coming in cold left you at a disadvantage. Fortunately, you don't have to jump through all those hoops again for the next e-book.
(I'd also think you may not need iTunes just to transfer files, but since you own one and not me, you'd have to tell me.)
Of course, these gripes about a company that goes to this much trouble for customer lock-in sounds kind of funny from someone who owns a Kindle...
