Good post and thanks for sharing. One thought I had though:

You mention how the ipad and surface each have their strong points relative to each other - and that's true...but I see that your solution is to own each of them and use each for their strong points.

For a lot of people though - most, I'd argue - the cost involved in purchasing each of these devices makes that approach out of the question. Especially since so much of the core functionality overlaps between the two.

So yes we should all recognize the strengths of each product, that different people will value various features differently, and we can afford to take our fanboy blinders off. But I also think a lot of the debate between devices, and bashing of the weakness of each (and you see a lot of surface bashing on this sub too) does have it's own value. Because as long as these devices are both in direct competition with each other for our money, it's good to hear about their strengths and weaknesses, their pros/cons, etc, so we can all make an informed decision over which would best fit our use.