I eventually ended up taking it back to stock. he main reason I wanted to root it was 1)I'm kind of a tech nerd and tech minded and so was curious to do it and see what was involved and what I could actually do with a different ROM (I used Cyanogen) and 2) I wanted to remove some apps that were totally unessential to my use of the device that Asus put on there and gave no option to deactivate or remove.
My experience was that rooting was a bit hit or miss depending on what I was doing. Yes, I cleared unessential and unimportant apps off the device but I also found my wireless range lessened. Whatever driver was being used in the Cynaogen mod was not working like the stock driver. I had a few crashes and freezes but the setup was pretty steady for the few months I used it. There were a few apps opened up to me that required rooting but most people wouldn't be into them so I don't think that was really that much incentive for me although having access to the entire Google Play store might be appealing for a Kindle owner. Guess it depends on what types of apps you use, as Aemon pointed out, many of the more popular apps are on kindle already.
Overall, my experience wasn't a abd one. I learned what I wanted to learn and flashed it back although I did brick it the first time I reflashed it back. It took me several days to figure out what I did wrong and to scour the Internet for the correct fix to undo the bricking and get the stock ROM back on. In the end my device just works more efficiently with the stock, locked system. There is a way to root it with the stock ROM on it, so I could actually achieve what I originally wanted which is to remove the Asus apps but leave everything else stock, but I haven't really had time to do it.
I would say if your device bothers you that much and you are technically minded then you could give it a go. But, I will warn you that it probably won't turn your device into the super machine some rooters make it out to be and you still may brick it. There is always that risk. Let us know how it goes.