I've realized nothing but that I still dislike touch screens lol... let me use buttons damn it ><:
my wife on the other hand has been on it all day since I got it set up.
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of touch screens either, but I have to say, most of the games I've played on the Vita that have utilized them have done an excellent job. I actually like the touch screen functionality in Uncharted: Golden Abyss, even though I know most people here on GAF don't (I also love well done QTE's, much to the chagrin of "Anti-QTE GAF" Lol).
My wife isn't too impressed with the Vita, since it doesn't have anything she wants to play on it. She likes watching me play stuff though. Once they do a Mass Effect, Fallout, or Elder Scrolls on the Vita, she'll be all over it.
I wouldn't mind playing something like Fallout: New Vegas on the Vita, myself. The console is definitely capable of handling a Fallout game, especially looking at how it's handled the open world of AC: Lib.
What impresses me the most about the Vita is that, we're still in its first year, and yet I've experienced a rather high degree of impressive titles out the gate.
For comparison, I owned about 6 games total on my PS3 during its first year. Ditto for my PS2. I owned about 3 Xbox 360 titles for the first year I owned it.
On the Vita, I own 20+ Vita specific games. With an additional 20 PSP and PS1 games to play on the go. It's insane. The quality of those games is amazing as well (Uncharted, wipEout, Gravity Rush, Rayman: Origins, Unit 13, Super Stardust, Mutant Blobs, Sound Shapes, LBP, PBR, etc). It's beyond impressive to me. The wait for new games when I owned my PS2, PS3, Xbox, and Xbox 360 was horribly painful. With the Vita, I have so many games keeping me busy, with more I still need to buy, but probably won't get to until later on, that the time between new releases is a breeze.
I'm a big PlayStation fanboy, yeah, but I think the Vita is unfairly maligned and shit on by a lot of people, but the console speaks for itself. As far as Sony hardware I've owned goes, the Vita has had the best build, and the best year one software of them all for me, personally.
EDIT: @ Zulux, one of the last PS Vita firmware updates lets you turn on the option to control the OS using the buttons instead of the touch screen. It's in
Settings > System > Control with Buttons on PS Vita System (check the box)