iPad: a coffee table machine

The iPad has been announced for a while and is soon to be released. I just realised that I did not post any of my thoughts on that device. Here we are.
At first, I was disappointed because I expected another OS to run on it (MacOS-like for short).
Then, I let my friends and colleagues convince me that sharing the same OS as the iPhone/iTouch will be great and is visionary.
Ok, I took that for granted and moved to finding a real differentiator with the rest of the iP* family. Quickly, it appeared to me that it would be a perfect device to leave on the coffee table to replace the pile(s!) of magazines/newspapers that are cluttering the place.
Indeed, to me, it makes a great move forward for that kind of usage. But first, let me state that I'm not fond at all of eReaders of all sort: I really prefer read my books on printed paper. I do understand that travelers appreciate the eReaders for the convenience they bring to their trips: no more heavy weighted luggages (or at least no more burdened ones by printed books: the travelers/commuters I know that switched to eReaders are often hungry readers!). But my reading experience of books (still?) needs to go through a "real" (old style) book.
That stated, back to the iPad.
Reading a magazine is not the same experience (not the same "isolation" from the world, not the same dedicated reading duration, ...). And thus can really take advantage of moving to the digitalized world (which has almost already completely occurred during the past years: just look at how much the newspapers sales have dropped, and still do.)
But furthermore, it can provide a real additional benefit to the reader: you can receive update, you can go through videos, animations, dynamic graphs and other data visualizations to complement the traditional text+still image (hum hum, I guess I go a little bit too far too quickly since we do not have Flash on the iP* family... But let's guess this will be overcame thanks to dedicated Apps for reading magazines; which something we already saw with the iPhone/iTouch: eNewspapers moved from Web-dedicated-site to a dedicated-App ).
So definitely, for such an usage, I could be a potential buyer (and I must add that the "low" price greatly helps).
What still puzzles me: how much do I need the embedded 3G? Should not I stick to the WiFi for such usage? I guess so (although when I travel or I am on vacations, I could benefit from such a 3G connectivity...)