Well, if this has no screen I would still buy one if it was $100 (with edu discount even). I'd buy two, actaully, one for me and the wife. At $150 and no screen, it looks a little sketchy. Even a small rudimentary screen would make $150 reasonable ($140 after edu pricing)?
Also, the idea that the player has some sort of random 10 song from ITMS is brilliant. If they put an option in that synced up 10 'random' (or more likely random but based on your other music ratings by artist, genre, etc) and then it deleted itself after, say 1 or 2 plays, and songs were NOT repeated as freebies, they would sell 100,000s of songs (more than they already do).
I am imagining, if it has no screen, that it would allow for some special playlist programming from iTunes, perhaps a number system, where you can have 10 numbered lists (and as many non numbered as you like) that can be accessed with a scroll wheel or something like that. You would know what order they were in because you number them, and it would remove at least some of the mystery where a song might be.
On that idea of numbered lists, voice prompting isn't out of the question either, I spose... a tiny mic could be build into the player fairly easily, and the machine could recognize numbers up to 10, play, stop, pause, shuffle, etc. without much proccessing being done... unlikely, but possible.
The folding iPod idea isn't a bad one either. Something that is about half the hieght and the same thickness as a mini that folds open to be the same size as a mini but half as thick would be a brilliant formfactor. Protecting the screen for active users would also be a big marketing plus. Put a click wheel on one half and a small, 3 line display on the other. On the outside maybe have just one biggish button, a Play/Pause, so you could quickly stop and start it without taking it out of your pocket/wherever it's stashed. I'd pay $150 for that in a heartbeat. Not likely gonna happen, but would be my dream iPod.
Oh, the Life is Random thing strikes me as more of a marketing slogan, not a descriptor of the product. Life is Random, be prepared with your music or something like that. The Think Different campaign didn't mean that the computer thought different, it didn't do away with basic computer operation rules or anything like that. It was an advertising theme that was asking users to think different. Same thing here... Apple knows that your life can seem a little random, so "_________" fill in some use of the flash iPod to help with that... I could easily be wrong, but that's just my opinion.
Rob