Maybe I suck at the internet. I'm having a hard time finding these much better options you speak of. Feel free to link some.

Cheapest price I can find on Win7 Ultimate ( from a well know reputable retailer) is bout $200. I can find a similarly (maybe exact same) specced tablet for about $250. So it'd cost me an extra hundred bucks to get Linux on a tablet, and support from a US based company (personally works for me as I am in the US). I also get the satisfaction of supporting a company that is interested in Linux.

I also only found one (although im sure there are probably a few more chinese ones) x86 tablet (Archos) for less than $400. You can have your Win7 on atom cpu. I dunno if the thing even has drivers for Linux.

I'm really looking forward to Intels next mobile x86 chipset but the "current" atom line is unimpressive.

But hey don't let me stop you from handing your money over to Microsoft. I'm sure a good portion of it goes to their new open source division.