I agree completely, as evidenced in my first risk point, but anecdotal data does not speak for everyone. People will associate this problem with the PS3, not Sony. Why do you think they even removed "Sony" from almost all of the PS3? You see "Sony" in the "Sony Computer Entertainment of America" but thats about it. You see SCEA and PS3 and "Playstation" everywhere, but its not commonly called the "Sony Playstation 3", just "Playstation 3".
Finally, the very vocal community of Linux geeks are a VERY minor part of the PS3 community, and even smaller part of the gaming community as a whole. The PS3 is first and foremost a gaming machine. If you ask anyone on the street what a PS3 does, the first answer is always play games. Thus, I really believe that this issue will be practically negligible in the PS3's street cred. In fact, you can't even buy new PS3s that can install Linux anymore.
I understand that they are in fact removing functionality - but you bought a gaming machine that happens to be able to use Linux, not a Linux machine that happens to be able to game. People (in general) understand that, and I don't think that if they (the general public) are looking to buy a gaming system, the loss of the ability to install Linux on machines you can't even buy anymore will change their opinion in the least.