I don't think I agree

Since the GoogleIO announcement of the Chromebooks (no, I wasn't there, and yes, I am beyond jealous of all the killer goodies and learning that took place there, count me in next year if I can get tickets) I've been seeing a surprising amount of negative press. Surprising to me, anyway, and since I have a little time to kill, I thought I'd share my thoughts.
Basically there are a few recurring themes, and I'll list out and address a couple of my favorites, and offer my side as a member of the ChromeOS pilot program.

• The Chromebook is useless because it's little more than a web browser. A dumbed down version of a computer, and at the prices being stated, you can get a much more useful machine.

This is essentially true, but completely discounts the target audience and intended purpose of this machine. It is little more than a web browser. There are currently some limited storage options, and rumors are that we'll soon see offline Google docs, but really not much more than that, and that's the point. All your stuff is stored to the cloud. Don't like that? Fine. Don't buy one, but as for me, I've been amazed at the convenience of using Google docs, not only on my Cr-48, but also the rest of my computers. I don't need a thumb drive, don't need to remote desktop in to any of my machines, I can access any of my documents anywhere, no matter what computer I'm using, or where I happen to be using it. That now includes my Android phone. It means that my working environment is literally anywhere. I'm not crippled by the lack of Office licenses on my personal machine, or trying to figure out how to download something to my phone, all my documents are everywhere, all the time. Through the use of my Cr-48, the lack of offline documents is the one thing that has made it unusable as a work computer. Get me offline documents, and the only thing I can't do is code.
I cannot speak to the pricing, I buy computers as rarely as possible, but I can tell you that these Chromebooks are priced lower than my Nexus S phone.
Finally, sure, you can get a Windows netbook, but have you ever tried really doing much more that writing documents? Netbooks are not powerful machines, they are intended for web consumption, not heavy content creation, and if you take a Windows netbook set side by side with a Chromebook, what you'll find is the only thing you can't do on a Chromebook that you can do with a netbook is function where there's no internet connectivity. For some, this is a deal breaker. For me, it's not. The Chromebook is much easier to maintain. Why? You don't have to maintain it. It goes to the web, gets the latest version of the OS, and updates itself. For me, this is important. I am a programmer, I love technology, but I don't want to maintain my computers. I want to work with them, I want to play with them, but if I can avoid it, I'd prefer not to be bothered with maintenance tasks like backups, virus scans, disk scans, and if my disk does crash, I'd love to not have to be bothered with restoring backed up data. In spite of the geek who wants to impress people may tell you, computer maintenance sucks, it is not fun, and it detracts from getting the job done. I'd argue that with Windows on a netbook you're not getting a more useful machine. You're getting a machine that you can, and do, have to do more stuff with. To clarify, the Chromebook is nowhere near replacing my laptop or desktop where I write code, or my portable hard drives where I store audio/video/pictures/other stuff, but that is not the Chromebook's intended purpose.

• IT will never go for it because they don't like the loss of control of someone else managing their computers in a corporate environment.

I can't argue against this in alot of cases. Often IT people want to control every aspect of their environment whether that control serves a useful purpose or not. If I sound like I'm slamming IT people a little, it's because I am. I've had the (mis)pleasure of working with too many admins who control things simply because they can. On the other hand, if the admins are the type who can see the big picture, they're likely going to love the idea that they don't have to worry about security policies on machines, making sure the users aren't trying to block those policies, making sure the users aren't installing crap on their machines that they shouldn't be, making sure workstation backups are running, making sure patches are pushed out organization wide, burning up valuable hours pre-validating patches in a sandbox before pushing them out to the organization, well, those admins might realize that they're free of alot of tedious crap, and they can concentrate on getting some real work done.

• It'll never fly because people don't trust the cloud.

In fact, most of us do trust the cloud. Smart phones, Internet, email, nearly everything we do when a wire is plugged in to our device, or the device is talking over a wireless connection, is in the cloud. The real issue is Google bias. In this context, you say you don't trust the cloud, you're most likely really saying you don't trust the Google. 

1. Your data is safer with Google because they have far more redundancy than you could ever dream about.
2. Your data is safer with Google because their backups are far better than yours (if for no other reason than if they became unreliable their empire would likely collapse).
3. They are not the ones you should be afraid of for misusing your data, because they are very open with how they use your data. You want to be afraid? Worry about the organizations who skirt the issue of what they do with your data, and don't think for a second Google is the only one collecting your data. Everybody is collecting your data to some extent. 

I dunno, just some rambling thoughts while I burn off a little time. I don't believe the Chromebook is going to take over the world any time soon, but after using a Cr-48 since December, I can tell you that this thing is not a fad. It is a useful, capable machine that will fill the needs of many of the users out there. It's not for everyone, but neither is Windows, Mac, or various flavors of Linux. It will appeal to users who simply want a way to interact with the wired world, and it will appeal to users whose needs are limited to wired communication and standard desktop content creation. It will appeal to people who need a secondary portable machine. Try it. You'll probably like it.