The bottom line is MASS appeal, I'm sure Apple is doing all types of focus group studies to see what would make a person buy this product and what feature the "study" found that a large segment of population would NEED to have on a device like this. If it is profitable to apple they will add the feature.
Over the next year , we will start to see how it plays out, the NEXT month is the HONEYMOON phase , the next 11 months will show us if apples plan worked or not. So much hype the last month , pro and con , it's all good for apple. At this point I take my netbook/laptop with me because usb hard drive option gives me complete access to all my media. This IPAD limits me to the small 16/32/64 gigs of storage that has to be linked with itunes (if apple can help it).
p.s. For me, the IPAD with regular usb port that can see my MS drives as hard drives and be able to play media on those drives would sell me on the IPAD. My laptop/netbook/media player can do it, I would want my Portable IPAD to do it too!