Yes, absolutely. And I think I'd buy the same model of 16 Gig Wifi/3G that I bought this time. Thus far, with some music and a good selection of HD WWDC 2010 videos, I'm still only at 8 Gigs used.
Watching these videos (I8n, UIScrollViews, CoreText so far) in a comfortable setting whilst feeding the baby have been the killer app so far.
The iPad is not a laptop, it takes up much less space, much easier to handle, doesn't get hot, doesn't have a fan. Though more limited, its relationship to laptops is similar to how much of a jump my 20" iMac was over a regular PC desktop. Less space, less noise, less heat.
Something is definitely wrong with your iPad, and you should take it into an Apple Store to have it checked out.