Personally I see this christmas as more important to the PS3 than to the 360 but you are right in most points, personally I don´t see online gameing as the big thing this generation as its hyped up to be, maybe thets just the ever unimpressed PC gamer speaking in me, I really don´t think playing online will stay a gold members only thing for long but I could be wron with that, if MS can drop the price by 100$ and bring the falcon out on time I see no problem at all with the hollyday season, expecially with the game lineup.
I think people make to much of the hole RRoD thing (like they invented flawed consoles), yes its crappy but MS is owning up to the problem and I think that when the falcon comes to stores it will be the same as when Coke went from New Coke back to Classic Coke, people will love it, they don´t see a problem that needed to be fixed, they see a product of more value at a lower price.