Views on the raspberry pi

What are your guys views, on the raspberry pi? Tons of kids in my school are like "OMG IT'S LIKE A COMPOOTER YOU CAN PROGRAM YOURSELF LOOK I MADE IT SAY HELLO WORLD IN PYTHON" now don't get me wrong, everyone needs to start somewhere, it's just why with this, what's wrong with just installing linux on your laptop, it's just a slow linux computer. As far as I can tell it's only use is teaching intermediate programmers lower level stuff when they start using the GPIO pins and such.

It's feasible to furnish a whole class of students with a standard machine to learn programming using a Raspberry Pi. It's not always feasible to ask students to buy a laptop computer if they don't have one. With a Raspberry Pi, students can do their development on a school computer then transfer the results to their Pi.

As for possible applications for the Pi, here is a list:
Flawless 1080p playback
Hardware decoding for all the major video & audio formats
5.1 Surround sound with DTS or Dolby Digital using HDMI pass-through
Apple AirPlay support (play straight from your iPhone/iPad to the TV)
Stream content straight from the Internet
A full vehicle diagnostic computer with a USB OBD2 adapter
Digital radio in the car with a USB DVB-T adapter
Have Internet in the car with a USB 3G Dongle
A media player with a 32GB SDHC card and XBMC
Add a relay and turn on and off anything from IP.
Add a USB webcam and monitor from afar.
Add environmental sensors and build your own EMS