I actually got my Pad at a price cheaper than the 4GB Eee. From eBay, obviously, but it's a new Pad.

You're right about the competing part. Still, as a couch device, I'd wager the Pad is much more user-friendly. If you've ever tried to use a (sub)notebook while lying in the sofa, you'd know what I'm talking about.

The bottom line for me: Once the smart people have figured out how to replace "Fedora Core 4 + Pepper Desktop" by a real Linux distribution (I'm thinking DSL+Icewm, or even E), the Pad can still have a long and happy life.

What surprizes me, is the apparent absence of Hanbit in the Pepper Pad hacking scene. Hanbit is after all the manufacturer of the Pad (Pepper only licenses the dreaded Pepper Desktop software) and the general consensus of the community is that a Pad with a "normal" Linux on it would sell much better than the current version. So, unless Hanbit has agreed to a truly insane licensing agreement with Pepper, it would be in their best interest to at least help the community in de-Peppering the Pad.