i have a 700, and my first device was an eb1150 (older device with backlit lcd display, touch screen, search function...). i think most often the people who have hated the 700 are the ones who are used to a sony 505 or Cybook Gen3, and don't care about the extra features on the 700, and the ones who love it are often eb1150 users who don't want to give up the ergonomy of the eb1150 when they move to e-ink, and appreciate the features such as search and notetaking. personally i find the 700 to be an excellent device (although still not perfect). i'm not bothered by the glare and the screen is quite readable for my needs, including at night in bed by low light, although like all e-ink screens the more light the better. i almost never use the sidelights but i use the touchscreen all the time for turning pages and notes.
concerning your specific questions : i don't personally feel the need for wireless connectivity (although, this could be because i've never had it, just like the people who have never used an eb1150 and think they would never use the note-taking feature / touchscreen
). it's very easy to connect the 700 to the computer and transfer files using calibre or the file browser and as a bonus it charges the battery at the same time. and i always have enough books loaded that it's not a problem if i finish one while away from my computer.
sidelights : i'm not a fan of lit screens in general and this is a feature i dislike on my eb1150, so i don't use it in general. however i was glad to have it once in a particular situation where it was very handy. it's actually pretty decent, if you like that sort of thing, and quite useable. the light is irregular but it didn't prevent me from reading (on the lowest setting).
glare : there is some, and sometimes i notice it more than other times, but it's not been a huge problem for me, and has never prevented me from reading.
resolution is the same as other e-ink screens if i'm not mistaken and is ample for reading text and can even display images quite satisfactorily. perhaps you mean contrast, which is lower than the 505 or the Gen3 screen, however again this hasn't been a problem for me.
book manager : if you mean the sony software, i don't use it ; i use calibre instead and it's quite good, and does have a live search (results are filtered as you type in the search bar). i don't have 20k books yet but from what i hear even in large libraries it manages quite well. if you mean on the device, i'm actually very pleased with the UI, and this is one of the places having a touch screen is really brilliant. you can sort the library view by title, author or date added. in title and author view the alphabet is displayed vertically along the right side of the screen and you simply touch the letter you want to go to, then you can page forward and backwards to find your book, touch the title to open it. there are also the collections, which allow you to create groups of books and find them easily by theme, genre, or whatever tag you want to add. and if you like to read several books at the same time and switch back and forth, i've found it's really convenient to use the notes and bookmarks for this ; just add a bookmark before putting away your book, then you can open the "all notes" view and select any bookmark to go immediately to whichever book you want to pick up.
in the past sony has released a new model each autumn however with the current economic "downturn" and layoffs i'm not sure whether they will continue to do so. in any case no official date has been announced.