With a screen this size, the lack of Flash and ePub support are major drawbacks. On an iPhone, flash isn't nearly as important because the web is used for a couple minutes for quick lookup or fact check when you're on the run. The iPhone is sort of a glorified programmable remote control.

The iPad's surely meant to be used for much more, like sofa surfing, say like a netbook. You need flash to compete with that.

You need flash to access all those video sites that aren't youtube, and the only hope is that the HTML5 video would work and sites would update, but that may not happen.

The iPad is possibly the most portable and technologically advanced 'large screen handheld web browser' in the world, and it doesn't even posses the ability to access a website with 1996+ erra graphics.

I'll be shocked if they ever add Flash support though, because you'd be able to write cross platform software that circumvented the app store and their 100% control over apps you can run. I hope I'm wrong and they change their mind and add Flash. For me, it's the deal breaker, and I'm a fanboy too.