The playbook CONCEPT is phenominal. The OS is outstanding and rock solid. The hardware really is sufficient, especially for a tablet that's over a year old. It was just as good as the ipad2 was in terms of specs.
RIM's problem is that their SDK doesn't allow enough control over things yet. The native SDK essentially allows you to use openGL, and that's about it. There isn't any form of background processes yet or interaction amongst apps, and that's what is killing them. It's not just that app developers don't want to write apps, but that many of the apps that one wants to write (or port) cannot be done currently without rooting.
I hope that they fix it for BB10, because the OS and interface actually is really nice. I don't need many apps, but I do need powerful apps, not just games or things that run in a card (i.e. a gtalk app would be nice).
If they can accomplish this then IMO they'll have a solid device and will start to attract developers and then customers.