Clutter of having two systems.

Lack of BC is my biggest gripe with my 40GB, I wanted the 80GB with BC, but I bought during the walmart deal and they didn't have the 80's in stock, so I was choosing b/w a $300 40gb, or wait for the 80 and miss the deal, so $500, plus there were rumors that Sony was working on BC emulation.

And before you say go buy a PS2, I already own one with a decent collection of games, but it's already DRE'd twice and I've had to fix it myself twice, not to mention there is no room for it in my entertainment console anymore with my 360, PS3, Wii, CableBox, Home Theatre, and Movies/Games. Not to mention wired controllers, and more wires in the back.

BC is a big deal to a lot of people, including myself.

My ps2 playing God of War 2 on my 50 inch plasma looks like crap :P

That's because MS and Nintendo's last gen consoles weren't very successful commercially, and were discontinued several years ago. The PS2 is still selling well, it's still getting software, and Sony doesn't want to hurt PS2 sales because they are making a loss on the PS3 and a profit on the PS2. Would you prefer if they added backwards compatibility and made it $450? Besides which, the 60GB has the highest failure rate of any model because of the Emotion Engine.

The moment the PS2 is discontinued, Sony will add b/c back to the PS3. It makes sense. Sony has no duty to let you play PS2 games on your PS3. If you have PS2 games, you have a PS2. If you have no PS2 games, you don't need anything to play them on. If you want PS2 games, buy a PS2. It's that simple.

Plus, you can get a Slim and PS2 for less than the price of an 80GB before GamesCom. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is stop complaining!

For me, there were 3 main issues:

Space - PS2 is an extra chunk of crap in already limited space.
Reliability - PS2 is a steaming pile of shit, whereas the PS3 is actually very reliable and well-made.
Functionality - No wireless controllers, no remote starting, no upscaling, no anti-aliasing, and crappy video/audio cables.

This is why I bought a 20GB PS3 on eBay for $350 a little over a year ago and then added a 320GB HDD to it.

Yeah, let the consumer suffer because sony failed horribly with the ps3 this generation. 

And yes, because clearly people are so excited to pay $400 for 2 consoles in this economy.

OP: Many reasons...who wants 2 consoles crowding space? Wireless controllers. Less wires.  Come on, if diskswapping is such a heartbreaking issue as ps3 fans make it seem...then having to deal with 2 consoles is murderous. 

I miss BC quite alot. There are some great games that I've missed out on and because my PS3 dosn't have BC, I can't play those great games :(

The failure rate was not that bad. In fact, most of the problems ps2s ran into was lens motor, which occurred due to overuse of the system.

So, you can always just tighten the arm on the motor or you can buy another one.

This arm is the one thing that affected ps2s over anything else, which either gave a clicking noise, or made no noise whatsoever.

I had known that I wouldn't be able to swap consoles with my brother I wouldn't have bought a PS3. My bro has 60GB Full BC unit. I have an 80GB POS (no card readers, 2 usb port, no PS2 BC) model.

No... it was that bad. 

Sony lost MULTIPLE lawsuits because of it.

It was right up there with the 360.

Infact when polled the failure rate was well above 50% just like the 360.  Both likely overblown.  But they were the same level.