Thoughts on the new Samsung Note 10.1 (2014 Edition)

So I've been holding off on buying the current Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 on account that I knew Samsung would be revealing new tech during the Berlin IFA show. So imagine my excitement as I read on Android Central that they have hands on with the new Samsung Note 10.1 (2014 Edition). Well my excitement turned to bitter disappointment as I read through the article and saw the pictures. Hit the break to so see my gripes on the new hardware.

• No front facing speakers. (One of my biggest pet peeves on tabs and phones)
  What was an awesome feature of the original Note 10.1 is now gone. Let me tell you that front facing speakers is so much better. Think HTC One. The side speakers are terrible, trust me I know. How do I know. I have a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 (non-Note) and the speakers are along the left and right sides (When tab in landscape). When your holding the tablet your hands tend to block the speakers. The sound is terrible because it's shooting out the sides rather than being sent towards the user.
• Physical and capacitive buttons on the front.
  Why....WHY....WHY SAMSUNG WHY!!!!!?????? We don't need them. They get in the way when holding the tab in portrait mode. We don't need them on tablets and we really do not need them on phones either. Stop it. Your making a habit out of this and I understand it's hard to break habits...but stop.
• Different hardware based on the model you buy.
  2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU for WiFi/LTE model.
  1.9GHz Exynos Octa Core CPU for WiFi only and WiFi/3G models.
  There's no reason for this that I can understand. It just doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps someone else can tell me why they would do this but if I were driving the Samsung ship I'd just keep the hardware the same across all models. 

So now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I get the old hardware which I prefer, minus the screen, and get stuck on Jelly Bean (I doubt they will update to KitKat. I'm still waiting for JB on my original 10.1...yeah right). Or do I bite the bullet and get the 2014 edition, with that gorgeous new screen and learn to live with my gripes.

Update:
Just learned from the Engadget Review...

The original Note 10.1 may not have come with the latest version of Android out of the box, but the 2014 edition does. You'll enjoy Android 4.3 Jelly Bean from the very beginning -- well, Samsung's TouchWiz'd version of it, anyway. Unfortunately, that means you won't be able to add multiple users as you can on vanilla Android.