Phil,
You are correct the new USB Flash drives tend to be very slow, however that is because they are using the USB interface - which limits the data throughput to 21(or20?) megabits per second - thats only 2.5 megabytes per second - not too good.
You're right, the upgradability would be an issue, but for heat I think that the Flash would win hands down. 3 things that cause the most heat in your computer are your power supply, cpu and hard drive, so these new "projected" laptops could greatly reduce heat using the new Intel laptop chips [i]and[/i] Flash storage.
With all due respect to the writer, I think this whole article is based on a misconseption. The very deffinition of "innovate" is to "make changes in something established". So by deffinition Apple does innovate more frequenty than stated in this article. Was the iPod nano new? Heck no, but they made enormous changes (metaphorically). I am not a "zealot" but I do get frequently annoyed with the increasing "reality-show-judge" mentallity that has to chew up talent and spit it out because of some minor flaws here and there. Everything is flawed. Apple innovates and they are one of the few companies, let alone tech companies that do - for which I am thankful.
July 29, 1993: Apple Introduces AV series of Computers
Flash Based Laptops, Sooner Than You Think
Apple: Bringing You the Innovations of Others Time and Time Again