Hi Marius,
Those are all fantastic questions and I will start with our choice of USB ports on the BDP-2. While looking at new main boards we had were looking for a couple of things (intel atom, industrial grade and board customization, USB ports that would exceed 500mA power output). The only manufacturer we could find meeting this criteria just happened to sell the board with 8USB ports (2 are internal headers that we aren't currently using). We just saw the extra two ports as a bonus and something to hold over the BDP-1 along with the dedicated power supplies for each port. By no means did we go out of our way to get a total of six ports, in fact in a couple of years when we release a BDP-3 (as it is inevitable) we may only see four USB ports, who knows I sure don't, after spending a tedious year working on the BDP-2 I don't want to start a BDP-3 project anytime soon. As to why USB was on the list of must haves, simple, USB is simple to use, plug it in and it works. Also you don't need to own a NAS and the BDP will share the drives over the network turning it into a NAS for other devices. As for people in a situation that you find your self in, that you already have a NAS well you can use that to.
As for the BOT, well that's a project that has been a long time coming; much like all lot of stuff we would love to release. The point of the BOT is to stimulate sales (i don't mean for this to sound cold or corporate, i'm an engineer after all) of BDP's for those looking for a solution that will not only play back digital files, but also rip audio cd's or just to playback audio cd's the best way we know how to.
Cheers,
Chris
