I am glad I don't go to your hacker space, that is a pretty unnecessarily nasty attitude.
500ma is a problem. The fact that you can't easily run it off of a battery without buying additional [expensive] hardware is a problem.
Nasty attitude? If you're telling people that a raspi is a good intro to embedded electronics, then you're harming their development.
This isn't even what the raspberry pi was intended for. It was intended as a cheap machine to introduce people to programming with. For that, it's awesome, but I have yet to see anybody actually use it for that.
And yes, the power is not a concern for everybody under the sun.
So in short, development is easier and more flexible (obviously), peripherals are cheaper (for the difference between the usb adapter I got for my Pi and a wifi shield from sparkfun, I would have $75 left over for an "expensive" PSU for a Pi... I mean come on... At least with the Pi you have the option of just using ethernet if you want to be cheap, with an arduino that will still set you back more than the price of a Pi), and the devices themselves are more flexible (get tired of your project for some reason? No problem, just ducttape it to the back of your TV and use it as a media-pc whatever.).
Downsides are... worse GPIO and you need to feed it 500mA. Wow. Anyone who does not find that daunting is surely an idiot.
Nasty attitudes have harmed peoples' development far more than $35 computers ever have. Your vitriol is baffling, how could something so minor evoke this? How have raspberry pis really wronged you?
And who says that embedded hardware must run off a battery? You're sure one to talk about stupidity.
Yes it uses more power, but for many applications, that doesn't matter.
If your device needs a web server, you're probably not just starting to learn about embedded electronics.
If you want to learn about web servers, do that, if you want to learn about embedded electronics, get an arduino.
Next time you spend $25 for an ATmega32, remember what you called those other people.
Try and pop the ARM chip off of your raspi and see how it works out.
For ARM, I prefer to solder my own LQFP at about $7. http://twitpic.com/btvkmd
You're right though, someday I'd love to be able to transplant BGA packages.
It can be done. Surface tension is a wonderful thing.