I wouldn't say the DS is not innovative, though touch screens are nothing new, I can't say I've seen any Palm games that make good use of it. Then again, I've never even had a Palm in my hands
The problem with the DS touch screen, for me, is the utter lack of a good protection option for the touch screen being available at launch. I have so far only found three options for screen protection, and none of them were available AFAIK on release day. None of them are very feasible either:
1 - A DS specific screen protector available in the DS 'Starter Pack', a 3rd party set of accesories (headphones, car ac adapter, and screen protectors) retailing for about $15-20. Too much to pay considering I have no use for the other two items
2 - PDA screen protectors. You have to cut them to shape (a pain in the butt) and they make it looke pretty bad, all shimmery and weird and really kill the picture quality especially in the daylight.
3 - DS specific screen covers, available by themselves, from video game import companies. The 'good' ones, the ones liscensed by Nintendo, go for $10 a set. I've recently orderd some of these, and hope they are better than the PDA ones.
But none of these options were available AFAIK when I got my DS. And yeah I have played Feel the Magic and love it, and the Super Mario mini games as well. And since I didn't have a screen protector when I played them, my touch screen has quite a few scratches on it now. And trust me I go to EXTREME lengths to be careful with that stylus.
My point is, Nintendo should have made sure to have a nintendo liscensed DS specific screen protector available for the system right at launch. Now I have to pay them $40 to replace the touch film?
About the battery life... I did think maybe it was a little short, and considered calling Nintendo... I may have to return my DS anyways since it had some dead pixels on the screen right out of the box. Maybe I'll do some test to see really exactly how much play time I'm getting out of it. But I'd say I'm getting 6 hours max. Additionally, the second DS I bought for my wife, is getting about the same amount of play time, so I dont think it's just a defective battery in mine.