If I add the cost of my treo 650 to the price of all the software i added to make it useable, it was well more than $600
Of course, at least I had the ability to ADD software. (Out of the box, the treo 650 had a lot more shortcomings for me than the iphone does. Does anyone actually use that versamail crashbait? i don't like crashes, but crashes that actually wipe all the data off your phone are a serious problem. And I forked over for at least 2 alternative web browsers, in addition to a couple of free ones. Plus zlauncher just to be able to make decent use of flash memory [said flash being needed because i had to load so many other programs on their just to get it to work right]. And backup software for when my preferences database got mangled. Argh. I'm having flashbacks.)
Luckily, I have that ability with iphone, as well, but most people won't go that route.
Anyway, since most people who already forked over the $600 still appear to be happy (yes, there are exceptions, and the people with complaints are always more likely to post than the people who are happy), and since those are the folks who are "waiting," as you put it, i'd say it's got enough of the "basic functions" they want. Presumably most those who believe that deleting individual calls from the log is a "basic function" (not to mention the other missing features) haven't yet forked over their $600.
Personally, now that i have a unix shell, I'm content