Morely,
The thin client looks kind of neat, but I don't think I'll be using one in the car-computer project. I'm going to need at least 2 serial ports, and I doubt the thin clients are going to support > 133gb hard drives.
I might get one anyway, though. I can think of at least one other project where one of these would come in handy.
As for the controller, I know many like using numeric keypads, but I'd be swearing at mine. Besides, I have no good place to mount one. Playstation-wanna-be 10-button gamepads don't look very cool, but I find them really easy to operate.