rsync is much easier than creating an account and gives me more control.
It was one of the first things I thought of, "I hope I can run rsync on this thing to sync notes".
I guess if this device is targeted only at power users then rsync support is great. If they're hoping to make this a mass market device then they probably need something more user friendly.
Of course, but they are not mutually exclusive, you can offer both.
I agree that it should definitely be an option because there are plenty of situations when using this device where you might not even have connectivity.
> the default behaviour of requiring one to send files from a computer out far away to some server on the Internet, and then back to the tablet sitting only a few metres away seems rather silly and wasteful.
It is definitely silly and wasteful but it's oh so simple when it works correctly. Instead of dealing with SMB shares, email, FTP, rsync, cables, mass storage devices, properly ejecting things, or any other technology; you instead just put a file in a designated folder and it's available on all of your devices in a matter of moments.