You are not alone. I'm also insta turned off by any reader replacement that wants access to my google account. Seriously, I'm supposed to give you access to my friggin contacts just to try your service?! I just want to read my feeds and sync across devices.
I've always assumed studio contracts were the reason. Surely most if not all engineers at Netflix would love to support Linux. They have released some very cool Open Source projects like Eureka and regularly post details about the inner workings of their AWS infrastructure on the tech blog.
I'm currently using 3 IDE's. IntelliJ for Java, Flash Builder (Eclipse) for Flex, and NetBeans for PHP. I made an effort to switch to Eclipse for everything a while back, but find NetBeans my favorite tool for PHP, especially with the Zend Framework. I love the simple interface and it just seems to figure things out for autocomplete, refactoring, etc. better than anything I've tried for PHP. It's really nice to see Oracle continuing development on it.
The only thing I open Firefox for anymore is SQLite Manager. What really made me fall in love with Chrome developer tools is using them to write Chrome extensions.
I checked out that vizio, it's single core and 1/2 the storage (has an sd slot though). Unless you care about the GPS and camera, seems rooting the fire is a better choice. I doubt I'll root mine though, I'm one of the few that seems to like it.
Got one free last week, and for me 7" is the perfect size for typing in landscape mode. I actually quite like the Amazonized android too for the most part. Side-loading apps is a bit of a hassle, but at least you can install any android app. I put Dolhpin HD on it, runs fine. It's also not sluggish at all (maybe they've pushed an update since the early reviews?). It's much zippier than my LG revolution. Some apps seem to run way smoother than on my phone (e.g. TuneIn Radio has been flawless so far). Battery life is good. The easy to accidentally press power button at the "bottom" (using it upside down can actually occasionally be an issue for some apps that only run in one mode), and lack of a SD slot is really dumb. I'd still buy one for $200.