Appeal of e-Ink is not low cost. It is extremely low power consumption and paper-like feel. One charge of Kindle battery is really good for two weeks of reading (if you keep cellular modem mostly off). Reading from the Kindle feels so natural that after several pages it "disappears" as a gadget - you simply read a book.

I mostly carry my Kindle in jacket pocket wherever I go, without the cover (it won't fit with it), so I can read in a cafe, or over the lunch. Nothing happened to it so far (I bought it almost six months ago, the moment it was available in Europe).

I can envision buying an iPad, but the usage profile will be completely different. As a reading platform, I guess I would be using the Zinio platform to read magazines on it (for example Aviation Week & Space Technology to which I subscribe) - Kindle is not a good platform for that. But I think I would mostly use it for light web browsing and perhaps watching a movie now and then - not even for what I am doing now, since I hate soft keyboards.