http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/21/nokia-n9-first-hands-on/
The UI appears to be extremely smooth. There's also a demo of transitioning audio from phone to external speaker using NFC.
I've expanded http://www.gwern.net/Girl%20Scouts%20and%20good%20governance... to hopefully answer your wheat question.
As for your point about building character - I didn't see much of that in my sister when I was selling boxes with her or in her troop, I don't know how one would measure this one way or the other, and I don't think I actually criticized the cookie-selling practice at all, since the focus was on the price and whether money was being wasted by the organization. (Likewise, I don't follow your point about advertising. Walmart isn't exactly raking in all its profits and underselling Girl Scouts by auctioning off the advertising space on the sides of its cookie boxes.)