I recently had an opportunity to test a Playbook for a few days. My comments are made from the perspective of an IT admin who would likely be responsible for the setup and configuration of Playbook devices on behalf of others as opposed to the perspective of the end user. The bulk of my facepalm moments came during the setup process, which I repeated several times over the course of a few days.
During the setup procedure it would be nice if not everything was mandatory in order to complete the process. While the existing process may work just fine for an end-user it's annoying from an IT admin perspective or anyone who might be configuring a Playbook on behalf of someone else. For example:
Don't force the creation of the BlackBerry ID during setup, allow this to be done when launching AppWorld or afterwards so that the person who is configuring the device doesn't need to either obtain the recipient's existing BlackBerry ID or create one on behalf of the user in order to continue. There are times when it just isn't convenient or appropriate to have this done during setup.
Also, I couldn't find anywhere to change the BlackBerry ID once setup was complete. Maybe I didn't look hard enough but I looked everywhere I could think of.
Edit: According to this article, the only way to switch the ID is to wipe the device and reconfigure. 
Don't force the software update every time you configure the device. Again, make this an optional step that can be done later (as it can through Settings). At least have an option to skip it just in case it's not convenient to do it at the time. During testing we occasionally ran into error 3001 during setup which I assume was related to WiFi connectivity troubles. Having to reboot the Playbook, sometimes repeatedly, just to check for a software update that has already been installed gets old fast.
For whatever reason, every time I wiped and reconfigured the device, the software update check would claim that the device required the latest software update to be installed, despite the fact that the update in question (1.0.3.1868) had already been installed. On the initial setup the update was close to 300Mb, and on subsequent setup the update was approximately 60Mb. It was never clear why this occured since one would assume that once the device is updated to the latest OS version it stays at that level until a newer update is released (something that did not occur while we were testing).
During testing we had drained the battery to about 10% and then wiped the device and attempted to run the setup again. When we reached the Software Update check, the device announced that the battery had to be at 20% minimum before it could proceed. It then proceeded to sit there, running on A/C power, until 21% was reached and it then checked for the update we'd already installed the day before and promptly announced that we needed to install the same update, again. IMO if the device is plugged into the wall socket it should be able to at least check for an update without requiring a 30 minute charging delay first.
Please provide an option to skip the tutorials at the end of the setup process. I don't need to learn to swipe every time I reset and reconfigure the device.
Permit the installation of certificates on the device via USB prior to setup completing. We use 802.11x in our environment and the RADIUS server has a self-signed certificate that needs to be imported to the Playbook before it can connect to the network. Of course, since you can't do this until setup completes we have to connect to a seperate WiFi network in order to complete setup, and then copy/import the certificate and configure the "official" corporate WiFi network afterwards.
It may have just been the device we had, but I had endless issues with WiFi connectivity. Of the 3 WiFi networks we have on site (1 Open, 1 WPA2, 1 802.11x), the only one I was able to successfully connect to and use was the WPA2 network. Despite connecting to the Open network and (with certificate installed) the 802.11x network and receiving an IP address and other network info I was completely unable to access anything using these networks, no Internet access, no Ping test, nothing. The device didn't give any indication of a problem, it just failed to access anything when using these networks. Very annoying but I can chalk that up to perhaps being an issue with the device we received (I hope).
We also ran into odd behaviour where the Playbook would lose connection to the WiFi network after 10 minutes of inactivity despite showing that it was connected. I either had to turn WiFi off and then on, or reboot the device to clear things up.
All in all it's a nice little tablet but it has a way to go before it's fully baked IMO.
The BlackBerryID is required up front because it is much more than just AppWorld now, on the Playbook. The BlackBerryID is moving to become a universal RIM product ID, must like your iTunes password is with Apple (in which your iPod, iPad and iTunes account all have the same ID).
I think you'll eventually being seeing devices require a similar BlackBerryID requirement.
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