Expandable store is a must-have for me. At any pricepoint. It's not worth it if I can't take my music library with me on a few 64gb SDHC's.
Why no cloud? After all, that's what this product is designed around: Google Play. Upload your music library and use GP instead. It's that easy . . . that is unless you are in a no wi-fi area, which then I can understand.
Everyone seems to be having massive heart attacks over the SD card slot thing. If you "need" the SD card slot, then go get something else. Simple enough. But mark my words, I see this no SD card slot thing becoming a trend/standard in the future. Everything is going to the cloud whether you like it or not.