Yea I think the author completely misses the point when he writes "I expected at least another digit on that number due to the buzz surrounding the device."  All I can say is "what buzz?"  Outside of some small geek communities, most people haven't heard of this phone.  No one is talking about it and as you say no one pushing it, there simply is no 'buzz', and never really has been.  That's the problem with extrapolating from a tiny circle of homogeneous friends to the general population, you end up with a very skewed image of reality