Hmm, whilst the 550 may be flashier, and slighty more hi-tech in it's guts, i still doubt the 550 will ever be the deck that leaves the classic 250 a bloodied victim of merciless alleyway beating when the MP3 mafia come to try to remove the opposition
Regardless of how flashy the later decks are, excepting early-mid build 350's, the rest just gave over to flashiness and never quite retained the bombproofness of the old decks (250 being the benchmark for this).
If a 250 couldn't read a disc, it was truely a junk disc (v.badly burnt, shoddy cheapo unworthy media, or simply damaged).
Nice to see new firmware, but the newer decks just canna sway the cat's paw from patting the memory of the 250 fondly :P