I just think it's an intrinsic problem with the technology, not likely to be easily overcome.
1. Apple has to make this device relatively water-resistant. Check the iPhone -- certainly it'll go bad if you get it really wet, but obviously, for marketing purposes, Apple has to make sure that if you accidentally splash it with spaghetti sauce while eating dinner and using it, it won't fail instantly. Ditto iPad. So, engineering problem number one: we have to keep this device pretty sealed, we can't cover it with aerating holes.
2. Apple has to make this device fast, to be competitive. It has to cruise the internet faster than an iPhone, otherwise, who'd buy it? Fast means heat. Apple's pushing the limits here. Perhaps there are other suppliers of CPU (Intel) who can make a fast, low-power, low-heat-generating processor, but Apple chose to go with its own proprietary solution. That solution means trade-off of heat radiation for speed. You could probably make a cooler device, but it would be slower, or more expensive, or less under Apple's OCPD control. 🙂
3. Brightness. Again, you're fighting another fundamental engineering dilemma. To run this thing in the sun, even in the shade outdoors, the screen has to display considerably more brightly than it would have to in a cool, dark cave. Higher brightness means, again, greater heat generation. Apple is again clearly at the limits of current technology here.
4. Battery size. Larger battery, guess what?! More heat. The balance between making an even larger battery that might be engineered to run cooler, or a smaller battery that fits into the space allowed, another engineering trade-off. I'm sure Apple did the best they could here. They could've made a bigger unit, but then again, doing so == marketing fail.
All in all, Apple made a debut with showcase 1.0 technology that hit a clearly successful target market.
There are clear limitations to this device: the battery is not user replaceable, it is too heavy, it has limited connectivity, it does not multitask (and even when, come OS 4.0, it does, it will not do so well, compared with any equivalently-priced laptop), it smudges, etc. etc.
It's a shiny toy and it's probably the best Apple could make it, given the marketing goals. Are there limitations in the ways it can be used? Sure. Are those limitations opportunities for Apple to revise the device over and over again, keeping it in the public eye with new/improved all along the way? Most certainly. Are they bad enough to sink iPad in competition with, say, a Microsoft competitor? Possibly, but unlikely, given the establishment of iTunes and AppStore at this point (it's not all just about the device).
Enjoy your iPad within the constraints it operates under, or return it and wait, it's really your choice. I don't think any of us could have expected Apple to market this thing with, "won't work outside on a sunny day! Limited storage! Wi-fi may not connect to every device under the sun on the whole planet without any problems! etc. etc." -- so, as with all things, your happiness or unhappiness over YOUR decisions are YOUR responsibility. If there are things the iPad can't do that you wanted it to do.... you should have researched that better, or waited a little bit to see what kinds of limitations become apparent. You really can't blame anyone else for your own failures here, hard as you might try.
