That says: you don't want to spend $15 - $20 for a complete CD / $9.99 per digital album download. You prefer to purchase individual tracks.

Personally, I've never really felt that way. If an artist can't manage an album that I would enjoy, I can't really see paying for any music from them, even if it is $1 for one song. What does it mean to like an artist, if you think they can only manage a couple of listenable songs every few years?

Maybe it's because I'm so used to listening to complete albums that I just haven't caught up with the way the kids today "consume" their music (get off my lawn, etc; but dammit - I'm not even 30 yet!)

One thing I definitely disagree with, though, is the whole "nobody makes good music anymore" assessment. Even with my (apparently archaic) purchasing strategy, I can still easily find one or two dozen releases per year that I am excited enough about to at least download for "evaluation" (I end up buying probably half of those).

(Having said all that, I really don't care about the various packaging accoutrements: 14 mp3s/oggs (and maybe a jpeg of the cover art) is just fine by me)

small size
12 inch while larger than most netbooks is quite a bit smaller than most basic laptops.

light weight
Again while heavier than most laptops lighter than most basic laptops.

low cost
Ok so the 12 inch netbooks seem to be a little more expensive than the most basic of ordinary laptops but quite a bit cheaper than getting an ordinary laptop with XP (you get hit with a double or tripple whammy here, to get XP on a normal laptop you have to pick a more expensive range, pay the extra for vista buisness and then sometimes pay extra for the downgrade itself).

Seriously, they took a stand microATX case, stuffed in regular desktop components, installed Ubuntu, and said "it's for hobbyists and hackers"? Wow. Gee. Amazing. NOT!!! Why not pick a slicker 17" wide case that matches existing AV components and work with a mini ITX Nivida ION based platform? At least then it would seem to be more than a computer. Throw in XBMC or Boxee if you don't want to deal with setting up MythTV and call it a day.

I've an old IBM laptop (w/o remote, unfortunately) acting as a MythTV client connected to my family's main TV. My MythTV setup predates HD, though, so I've still some work to do...

You're right..AOL is what I call Internet Lite. It was amazing to watch them in the 90's, but at this point aren't they just irrelevant?