At first I was wondering why you were posting this, because at the time of reading your posts the most positive regard to the Switch were "It looks cool, I what games it'll have" type posts. But looking back in your posting history, I see what you're talking about now.
I myself am not really that big of a nintendo fan to the majority of people here, I spend most of my time on other consoles. Still, my regards were mostly about people coming to dumb conspiracy theories anyway. I.E. They lied about skyrim being on the console. There's a difference between those conspiracy theories, along with baseless conclusions like what exactly the specs are even though we have no clue, and actual criticism.
That's no reason for people to be hopeless and cynical though. Most people I saw here had reasonable expectations, if you have a gut feeling that doesn't contradict what's already been set so far, then go by that. But there's no reason why others shouldn't go by there's too. Right now there's no clear direction that the switcher will go in terms of success. Though reception for it has been better than it has been for the Wii U's announcement when it comes to non nintendo fan's thoughts on it. When the most common critisism is not even the system itself, but the wii u, I don't know, that just says to me perhaps it's not the Wii U and will have a different run than it did. Just like how the Wii U had a different run than the Wii, and the Wii had a different run than the GC, and the GC had a different run than the N64. etc.
Actually, it's fairly easy to make a reasonable and logical analysis of how the Switch will perform given the information we've been shown, combined with a simply look at the current trends in the market/industry.
I honestly doubt it's gonna do well with how the PS4 is performing. For starters, if it's Tegra (which it most likely is, considering Nvidya already confirmed it's their chipset), at best it'll be 85% as powerful as the PS4 WHEN DOCKED, and it won't even come close to the Neo and the Scorpio, whom both Sony and Microsoft felt were NECESSARY upgrades, due to demand from devs (as well as the advent of VR). So on that front the Switch is already underwhelming. It showed off Skyrim (seemingly remaster), and people are hyping this up like it matters because they believe that normies wanna play Skyrim on the go.
Except there are two problems with this. 1) Skyrim is NOT a game suitable for on the go play. It is a game you sit down, and play for long sessions, getting involved in every minute detail of you environment. So the people who think this is a good idea, will at best try it once, and then realize that it's not all that, and then drop it. 2) The idiots WANTING to buy a remaster of a game that already runs better on PC with EMD mods, are gonna get it on the most powerful machine that will make it look the prettiest, ergo, the Neo. With which, the Switch certainly cannot compete.
Secondly, the market right now is almost entirely owned by the PS4. Everyone has one of those, and even Microsoft is struggling to compete with Sony. How on EARTH is Nintendo gonna draw attention from that crowd? The biggest games out right now are Overwatch, Street Fighter V, and to a smaller degree FFXV (which we'll see on FF, as it might flop critically). If the Switch doesn't get any of those, it's not gonna do well. Especially it comes out in 5 months, and Overwatch will certainly still be relevant then. However, there's a catch here. Most gamers are already playing OW on PC, and wouldn't ever bother to play it on console. Meanwhile, most casuals and normies are playing it where most of their friends are playing it, as OW, to them, is a social experience. In other words, they're playing it on the PS4. So even IF OW came to Switch, I doubt it would help much, as most people will already have it on PS4, and if they upgrade to Neo, they can play the same version of the game there, and they won't really bother to shell out $300/$400 one a Nintendo console, with not many other games to play, and no friends to play it with. So here comes our loop. The PS4 ALREADY has a strong install base, and casual gamers will get the games their friends are playing on the consoles their friends have, in order to play with them.
So, Nintendo won't be able to compete with most core gamers again, at least no directly.
So, casual nongamers. The crowd the Wii drew in. Well, LOOK at the Switch, look at how clunky and bulky that thing is. Unless it comes with enough special features to compete with most smartphones on the market, it won't do well. In addition, designwise, it's nowhere near as sleek as most smarphones today. Setting up a tablet on a table, and pulling out two mini controllers is "too much" for your average person. Not to mention, most high end smarthphones ALREADY out already outperform it, and we have much more coming out soon. South Korea is already developing 11k resolution... for MOBILES.
Furthermore, we have the battery life, and this will be the biggest drawback here, as well as what determines the overall cost of this thing. If it's a powerful Tegra X2, or a variant of it, don't expect much in terms of battery life, UNLESS it comes with expensive batteries, which I doubt, as it would drive the price up well over the $700 price range. Meaning, with your average battery, you're looking at 2-3h of gaming time, AT BEST. Since that's what most mobiles can handle with much smaller and less intense games. No doubt, the design of the device, as well as the battery, will be the deciding factor for most casuals. Most would just rather play Candy Crush on their $700 phones, they don't care for ACTUAL gaming. And most gamers are Savvy enough to know that your average Android capable phone is able to emulate everything from the PS2, back. So they sure as hell wouldn't bother on a new Nintendo device that has a questionable future in terms of library (unless it got hacked, but that's a different story).
Which brings me to my next point. The games:
So, in the trailer, the 1st party titles we saw were:
Another Mario platformer
ANOTHER Mario Kart
What's presumably a port of Splatoon, or at best an exclusive sequel
A port of a WiiU Zelda title
And that's really it. People are hyped for Pokemon on console, and Monster Hunter on console. But for one, the latter already exists on WiiU, and it didn't make a difference for it. And second this is a very similar situation to the WiiU. This is NOT how you launch a console mid generation. No one is gonna pay any mind to the Switch if it's got NO exclusive killer apps right off the bat. And I don't mean just one or two, but EVERYTHING. Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Smash, DK, FZero, Kirby, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, new IP. IT ALL needs to come out within the first year to have any relevance among gamers. Without that, no one is gonna buy it, which means most 3rd party devs will bail on it after they keep their one game promise, and it'll fade into obscurity. And Nintendo can't continue to churn out casualized forms of their mature IP. On the contrary, it needs to let gamers know that it has games for them too, as well as get its slice of all the multiplat games that everyone loves, and after that.... You have a Gamecube situation at best. With Nintendo running 3rd leg and getting the worst version of the games everyone else is playing on the Playstation. But hey, it's better than a total flop I guess.
So at the end of it all, when you look at the market, and the industry, you really have to ask yourself, now that the Switch has been revealed. WHO? exactly is this machine meant to appeal to? It refuses to compete directly with Sony, it dropped mid gen and doesn't have a very strong launch considering the leaks, and it's too clumsy for the nongamers who already have smartphones. It also won't do VR.
I'll personally be very surprised to see this console be a sweeping success. My pessimism isn't pessimism, it's me saying what I said when Iwata namedropped this thing two years ago. Killing the WiiU early and releasing a console mid-gen when the PS4 ALREADY has a very large established userbase is a very stupid move. Not to mention Sony already one upped Nintendo by releasing the Neo, just before Christmas too.
I honestly DO think Nintendo should just become a 3rd party software developer at this point, rather than continuing to build underpowered consoles. Because they only thing that matters about them at this point is their games, and even those are suffering in their attempts to appeal to a broader audience.
(Though I do missing playing it on my TV regardless.) I can't believe it's gotten to the point where saying "It'd be cool to have this game on this console" is overly optimistic.