You know what's funny about #1 in the OP's post? Had, let's say Sega, come out with a console and said it was digital only, there would be no backlash. It's the very fact it was the follow-up to the 360 (and the same would happen to the PS3) that causes the backlash, since they were effectively removing a feature. This isn't a problem here because the feature never existed to begin with.
I consider Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider to be AAA titles at this point, both have been around the $10 range multiple times in the last couple months.
I personally love the fact they're just putting the OS out there - I love Big Picture mode on Steam (it runs very well and has a very refined Console look/feel), but it is kind of a pain having configuration windows pop up before the game loads, if they can take care of that I'd gladly partition my HDD and put Steam OS on one of them (on my laptop). Already have a 360 controller with wireless dongle.
The machines themselves are going to be a speciality item for a while, and I'm sure the price will be quite high. But the ability to build your own is pretty awesome.
