My research pointed in that direction too - that is, the best tablet in terms of price/quality. But if you're used to far more expensive iPads, well, the price difference is not only related to the screen size...

I haven't had problems with touch sensitivity, but then the Nexus is the only tablet I've ever used for any amount of time, so I can't compare with iPads or anything else. Of course it's not ideal for reading books - I too was quite frustrated when having to conclude that there really is no such thing as a combined tablet and eReader, for the simple reason that it's not feasible to have the refresh rates that you need for most tablet applications, on an eReader type screen. I don't know if other tablets are any better.

In battery life terms, again, I don't have much to compare to, but it's supposed to be quite good. A lot depends on the apps you're running, though - in the settings you can investigate which apps are devouring battery life, and there is a low-battery setting that you can use for some things.

If you're used to iPads, I really don't think going to the bottom end of the market would make you happier. Especially since the reviews we both read made quite clear that in terms of value for your money, you won't do much better than the Nexus. But then I don't know what price you paid exactly for yours (I got last year's model, without 3G, and at a rather good price even for that, so in the end the price gap with the really cheap stuff wasn't even that big).

Yeah, there are really only the two formats... it makes sense though, the one is about the limit of what you can consider handheld, and then the other one is a larger version that's clearly not handheld anymore and uses the extra screen space. Not much point in making some inbetween format, and for practical reasons in terms of covers etc. it's simpler for the market to stick to a few sizes.