I agree with that mate, I think it's wrong though, very wrong. Apple are telling people what they want, I think I said that earlier, rather than listening to what people want. You cannot say that the pad does 80% of what a laptop does, it doesn't. It does a fraction of what a laptop does, and at that it's to a fraction of the capacity. Yes you could say that a lot of people won't use the laptop to those lengths, and ergo the ipad would be fine for that type of user, but if you have a look at some of the comments on the ipad on this very forum (including your own) they are very 1 sided and not at all a clear and honest picture of the way things are with the device. You can't assume you are talking to a non-techie when recommending the iPad, you surely have to assume they are a full on end user who wants to use it to it's limits. In that case it's limits are here for all to see and there are LOADS of them.
How many of the non-techies are going to be able to get a DVD or a Blu-Ray onto the thing to watch? They would need to know about convertors and codecs in order to even contemplate the idea. Yes, they can download already converted movies/shows/documentaries/videos etc but then they are restricted to what they can view.
What Apple want to do is corner the market, the trouble is the more they are forcing people into their softwares and way of doing things, the more they are forcing people away. Yes they have pulled the market right into the 21st century but they are so stubborn in their ways that they are being blown out of the water by the flexability of the competition. Once people start to see past the bells and whistles apple will either need to change their way of thinking or they will be going due south IMO.