I haven't played with the new one but the Nook Color user interface sometimes strikes me as a bit glitchy in it's animations. I don't know if this is because of the Nook's hardware or because compositing in Android isn't great (I haven't personally used any other Android devices, so I have nothing to compare it to).
"The question is will B&N stick with it and keep pushing."
I work part-time at a B&N, which doesn't really give me any info that you guys don't have, but I am sure that they are dedicated to this course. Nook sales are an increasing part of store and company sales.
Some things I don't care for is that, at least at my store, they have reduced the amount of books we have in stock and there is talk of getting rid of our music/DVD department. It often seems to me, especially since we sell Nooks at other resellers, that B&N management could be laying the groundwork for leaving brick and mortar stores behind.