The best of the lot so far, as far as I can tell, is the Iliad. It's the most expensive, but it's also the most open, with a decent sized screen. I was inches away from buying one, and then I read that the current generation of e-ink screens tend to fade out and lose their contrast over a few years.

I suspect that before we see e-ink based readers that make good financial sense, we'll have small tablet computers for not too much more that will take up the market instead. Imagine, for example, an iPod touch that was only a bit larger, with a screen the size of a trade-paperback book? I suspect that this is where the e-book market will end up, rather than with the current generation of e-book readers.

As for Stalinesque ugliness, has the New Brutalism passed so quickly out of fashion? Or were you never a fan? 8)