Ah but the HD5 cracking buttons and HD3 connector dodgyness is something that happens over time. Assumably the actual specs of the new A3000 wont change, and they themselves already say that its worse, just the numbers and the facts. And now already problems with the software. Its already got a bad start.
The most talked about things that attracted people to the HD5, firstly was its small size, its long battery life, and the fact that the battery is removable. Why on earth would sony take away the most important things that attract customers? The A3000 is much bigger (last time i checked new technology usually makes things smaller), the A3000 does not have a removable battery (why on earth not, a little door like the HD5 is fine, as if Sony are going to do a good a job as apple in battery replacement, they arn't even helpful when troubleshooting), and the battery specs have decreased (This may not be true, they probably inflated the HD5's specs to sell more. They should not be using atrac 48 for all their measurements, nobody uses 48 and there is no way it sounds like 128mp3, sony should be fully promoting atrac3+64kbps, that would take off, advertise its advantages including gapless and they have a winner)
The sound was another but hopefully the sound isn't any worse on the A3000.
Another reason sony shouldnt use 48 to measure everything is because people looking in the shops see the 20gig one (possibly not knowing what that means) and see 13000 songs on it, then think, "there is no way I have 13000 songs or will ever need it" and then get turned off it, then look at another player like ipod and see the 5000 songs, "thats what i need" and buy that.
Now that there is the A1000, how many songs is it? 5000? when they see this in the shop they will either think that its too much, then buy a nano, amazed at its size and beauty, or they will get the A1000, find that they cant get 5000 songs on there because 48kbps sounds like shat and need to use 64.
Sony dont use what they have over the others to promote their players. Promote Gapless, explain simply what it is and why its important, ridicule the other players for not having it and use it to sell more players. (then maybe the other companies make their players gapless so we can buy them if sony are still peeing off people)