One of my two uses for a 7" - 10" device is "on a table top", where I can use it for typing notes and the like. That fits very well with what you're saying (only not oriented toward gaming).

But, my other use is "reading stuff on the bus/train". And, in that situation, I very definitely want/need/use a dpad. Not for gaming, but for browsing (scrolling, selecting the next widget, selecting the next link, etc.), just like using the Dpad on an N800/N810 can be used for web browsing. Doing that with a dpad has a much finer and accurate granularity than using a finger or stylus on a bouncy bus/train trip.

That similar "away from a table/desk" use is why I'd want to have a portrait mode vitual thumb keyboard. I probably wouldn't do it on the bumpiest areas of my bus ride (express bus between two cities, over a semi-twisty mountain road), but I would definitely want it for things like "ssh or VNC to a server console while I'm standing in the data center, between machine rows, bringing that server back from the dead" or things like that.