I'm gonna disagree with you. I have a previous-gen Paperwhite and I absolutely love it. I love that it's a simple piece of technology. The touchscreen rarely causes me problems, and I even dropped it into a pool and after 2 weeks of drying it's still working fine.

I consider it a well-made piece of technology that Just Works. (actually, a recent software update changed something that required changing my muscle memory... wish I could disable updates!)