FAIL: And here's some reasons why.....
***"And there's a lot to love, with applications heavily integrated and tied (or locked) to cloud services from Microsoft and its partners."***
Errrm, and how is that a *good* thing? I'll decide what services I want to use on *my* phone, thank you very much.
***"and no removable memory either - Microsoft reckons it complicates things"***
FAIL. Just FAIL. I suspect this has more to do with user lock-in than avoiding complication. If you can't whip out your SD card and copy files to it, you *have* to use the Zune interface.
***"Once you slide the lock out of the way you get to the home screen, which Microsoft insists on calling "Start""***
So much for avoiding confusion, then.
***"Those tiles are supposed to be superior to icons, and not only because they're bigger. The idea is that they display contextual information based on the applications behind them"***
Sort of like Android widgets, then? Except I can chose Widgets *or* icons.
***"Unlike its predecessors, Windows Phone 7 won't mount as a USB drive, taking its lead from the iPhone it will only integrate with Microsoft's desktop software, Zune."***
Linking with the lack of removable memory, this binds Phone 7 users to the Windows Desktop and Zune. It also allows Microsoft to control/restrict which files can be copied to the phone.
The whole thing is just too close to Apple-esque control-freakery for my liking. Phone 7 is clearly intended to be a competitor for the iPhone, rather than Android et al. In this it can only fail.