When the technology for pen-sensitive screens becomes cheap enough, it will be adopted by everyone -- and why not. At that point, Microsoft will stop maintaining the Tablet PC operating system as a separate brand and just subsume the pen and digital ink stuff into the mainstream OS. It's what it's done in the past: Windows for Workgroups introduced networking as a special, differentiated market, fell flat on its back and was assimilated into the amoeba thereafter.
That'll be tough on all those people who've invested time, energy and money on the promise that the Tablet PC format was really new, unique and different. When the technology is ready to invade new niches, it'll be obvious -- and it won't depend on press releases and sustained bluster. Until that point, the best fate for the ill-starred Tablet PC is to gently dissolve into the world of notebooks. Anything else has proved too hard to swallow.
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While I can understand the lack of success and the low sales - as a uni student I really could not think of going any other way - my acer convertible is just awesome and am definitely looking forward to purchasing a newer, faster more powerful model in the next 2 years of so.
As pointed out - it may just be a while till I save up the $ to buy a new one...