Also, the pull-out design feels dated to some people.

Or inconvenient. I myself used to think that if it wans't for the computer-like features (bringing the empeg at home, playing with it, attaching to the home stereo, etc) I would have disliked having to pull out my empeg every time.
Now that my car has been stolen, I frankly consider that a great feature. If I had to buy any other conventional head unit (which hopefully will not happen until something better then the empeg comes out), then my main concern now would be that they cannot be fully removed from the car when you leave. Of course a conventional head unit would not be as important to me as my empeg, dvd players, sat system, and so on are still nice and valuavble things, and I would never want to leave them in the car.

As of now, being a full pull-out device is one of the most important features of the empeg, to me.