Funny -- I always thought of Borders as a "bookstore for people who like books" compared to B&N, which I consider a "bookstore for people who don't like books."

Neither holds a candle to, say, The Tattered Cover, but unfortunately there's no Tattered Cover where I'm living now... :(

My feeling is exactly the opposite. B&N feels generic to me, a larger version of a crappy mall bookstore. Borders always felt more like a real bookstore. Plus: you can search Borders store inventory before actually visiting the store; you can apparently now do this with B&N but the B&N website keeps this quite hidden -- I only know it's there because if you search for "barnes noble store inventory search" it leads you to:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/store.asp?EAN=97...

which is the result page for a PHP book including store inventory search option. I've then been able to manipulate this into a general store inventory search with some success. Completely ridiculous that you cannot find this easily. No, it's beyond ridiculous.

Edit: apparently most -- but not all -- book results pages do have a "pick me up" slot where you can search a local store. Not exactly intuitive, but at least it's there now.

I used to find the similar thing, but then all the borders near me removed all of their seating (this was probably 6 or 7 years ago). That was pretty much the only reason I ever went to borders instead of buying stuff off Amazon.

(well, that and their air-conditioning on hot summer days when I didn't have any. Of course, with the amount of money I always spent there during those days I could have bought a window-unit AC in two visits, but I like books...)