the fact i don't need to run the hideous iTunes Win port is yet another great feature>

iTunes for Windows sucks great big donkey nuts. It's slow, it's a pig, the click-to-focus-and-then-click is retarded, and it keeps forgetting the view settings for my iPod (while it has no problem remembering the other views; and they could at least choose some sensible defaults so that even when it forgets I don't have to delete four columns). I don't give a shit if that's how it works on the Mac, I want it to work like the rest of my Windows apps, and they're famous for being horribly inconsistent, but at least they get that right. If the Zune interface can nail those details then I'm sold.

The HotJava VM has received an official "End of Life" notice from Sun; its technology is incorporated into the current "client" and "server" VMs (so I'm told).

Again, this is simply not true.

The "client" and "server" compilers are both part of the HotSpot VM. (There's no such thing as "HotJava".) So HotSpot encompasses both compilers. Sun did not abandon its HotSpot team/work, trust sme. They're still going strong.