Gah, forgot the most important part of that... That is, wirelessly sync whatever songs, albums, or playlists you choose to your iPod Touch FROM your iPod Touch.

Yes it is. Home Sharing has an option to allow you to automatically synchronize new purchases, but it does much more than that. You can copy any song from your iTunes library to any other machine on your Home Sharing network. For instance, I just copied a single album (ripped from my own CDs, not an iTMS purchase) from my main library upstairs onto my laptop. If an iPod were enabled for Home Sharing, it would make sense that you could do the same thing. That is, wirelessly sync whatever songs, albums, or playlists you choose to your iPod Touch.

How is Apple having retail locations a valid reason not to buy AppleCare or Apple products?

Again, though, this is disingenuous. Since we're talking about your typical, unsavvy user, they won't be doing most of these things. They buy a computer from Dell that has the software preloaded, and then they use it. And, to a large extent, it just works. This is simply not the case with Linux and that will have to change if Linux is ever going to truly be a viable desktop OS option for most people.

That's all well and good, but you certainly had to tweak things to get them to work. I installed Ubuntu last week and had to spend a few minutes tweaking some config files in order for it to recognize my scroll wheel. The same mouse works without ANY additional effort in both Mac OS X and Windows.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras to play MP3s is NOT the same thing as 'it just works', which was the OP's point.

Somehow I think that being in charge doesn't necessarily coincide with knowing where your backup plane is at all times. Just a thought.

"When President Obama learned of the episode on Monday afternoon, aides said, he, too, was furious. Senior administration officials conveyed the presidentâ(TM)s anger in a meeting with Mr. Caldera on Monday afternoon." Source: NYTimes http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/air-force-one-backup-rattles-new-york-nerve/

3rd highest sales of any artist. Ever. That means some pretty significant sales in and out of the US. Hell, the man just sold out 12 shows in a stadium in Kansas in about an hour. Like him or not, he's pretty fucking popular.