If it is still on your phone then you are fine.

If you ever reset your phone or have to move to a new phone then you've lost the game; there's no way to redownload it :-(

Microsoft doesn't sell phones. They sell phone operating systems. As such I don't think they would be concerned with if they sell a license through new hardware or not.

I thought "Mango" is thus far an unconfirmed (unannounced) rumor. The only officially announced forthcoming functionality is Copy+Past and some additional performance updates.

I leave Wi-Fi turned on. Since I use a lot of location services applications it works out better for me to leave Wi-Fi on since Wi-Fi location tends to give better results than cell tower based location and I may not always be in an area where I can get a quick GPS fix. Between the charger in my car and being at a computer most of the day for work I generally don't find myself worrying about battery capacity that much.

I don't think they are holding back to give Silverlight a better chance.

I think it all comes down to stability concerns and time constraints. There are features that are not yet in the Silverlight runtime on the phone (ex: Sockets) that were said to be left out because of the impact inclusion would have on the test matrix and delivery dates. I think they just concentrated on getting out what they could and will start releasing more with time.

Microsoft has also said that the initial release of WP7 isn't feature complete. So there's more to come.

From what I've been told the preproduction Samsung devices had a micro SD card but didn't support an upgrade. If you managed to pry the glued in card out the device would not book until the original card was restored.

Wasn't AT&T also the first GSM carrier with WM6.5 devices in the USA?

Unlike other phones the SD card is considered part of the internal storage. The Samsung Taylor (in developer's hands now) is implemented like this. If you get your hands on one you'll find that it's internal storage is a gig microSD card that is glued in place. You can forcibly remove the card but if you put another card in it the phone will not start until the original SD card is restored.

It's possible for a phone's internal storage to be a combination of integrated memory and what would essentially be a permanant SD card. But the internal configuration would be abstracted away from the user.

I've got to agree with your thoughts on this. 8 gigabytes is the lowest amount of storage that a WP7 device can have. Such devices can be made with internal non-user accessible SD cards. I'm inclined to believe that we are seeing base model specs and the carrier can decide what capacities that they will sell.

Can't help but think that the previous siloed approach was some how a side affect of the anti-trust and other anti-competitive law suites that were brought against them.