I went of a mini tirade on a reddit thread, I figured I would share my two cents with the TF community. tl;dr: I bought a PSP, got burned on investment by Internet pirates. Sony should never say no to functionality that would otherwise hinder a consumer's ability to do with their purchase as they please (think: CD ripping to an iPad). The need for a dedicated portable gaming device was abandoned after my last UMD game purchase. If you -really- want portable gaming, get a Vita.
Ha, I can echo quite a few of the same concerns you mentioned for the PSP. I loved mine initially, but so many poor decisions made it basically irrelevant for me after a period of time. I do have a Vita now, but mostly play it when I'm traveling, away at another office for work, or on the weekends when I have a bit of downtime. Some cool games there, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for more titles that'll make me really care about it.
This may make some mad, but I recently sold my PS Vita. If was fun at first but it just didn't hold my interest. I have a 3DS XL now and I love it, and I know why I chose to keep it and sell the Vita. GAMES!!, the 3Ds and DS catalog of games are just insanely good! And Nintendo has made better use of the touch screen control than Sony in my opinion. And by that I mean it seems more natural, I played TearAway, and a couple of other games on my Vita and the back touch screen just got on my nerves at times. Altho it was integrated wonderfully on TearAway, that is the only game that used all the Vitas features and made sense.
This is the main reason why I haven't gotten a Vita. Nintendo is really good at perfecting their niche and the things they include with peripherals, handhelds, etc. I feel as though Sony just kind of throws these gimmicks into their products, but don't utilize the full functionality of it. The touch-pad (not sure what it's actually called) sounds pretty damn cool, but I haven't heard anything about it in a game that makes me really say "WOW" when I see it.
Had my PSP 3000 for a few years but, only played the Monster Hunter games on it. Once I unlocked it I continued to only play those games and emulators on it. Used it to watch anime series I downloaded as well. After I went into the Army I had no more use for it. Enjoyed it while I had it though. Thought about getting the Vita last year for Xmas but, decided not to and that it would've just been an impulse buy.