Back on topic.... I've now also *finally* been able to get iTunes to fully scan all my music for its "Genius" features *and* submit those tracks to Apple (that last bit wasn't working for the first two days).

I can say that the Genius side-bar does have its uses, though it won't replace visiting Last.fm nor Rate Your Music for me. The Genius Mixes (the new feature) however is very disappointing. It definitely uses the genres you have your music tagged with, not what Apple may be using at their store. If you have a disproportionate amount of music with one set of tags, you're going to end up with mostly mixes for that type of music. Seeing as you're limited to 12 mix selections, you really don't have the room for variety because you can't actually customize the mix presets.

A more useful feature would be to allow creating these mixes by choosing some seed artists or genres yourself. As it stands this is just another half-assed pseudo-feature. Neat enough to encourage thought on the subject, but implemented badly enough to cause mostly frustration. The Apple M.O. for a while.

Small correction to my opening post... I believe Apple showed an image of a standard Flip Mino in their slides (also does VGA video), not the MinoHD (720p recording). However, the standard Mino is under $129 retail. The MinoHD is the one within the price territory of the iPod Nano (at $150+)