I had a PSP and also loved it, but I don’t feel like it was that mind blowing.
Perhaps you came to the PSP late in its cycle.
I happened to be in Tokyo when the PSP was released. I was on a subway and saw a girl playing Lumines and it completely blew my mind.
As soon as I was done with my daytime obligations, I went straight to Yodobashi Camera and bought one. When I got back to the U.S., showing it to people always blew their minds, also.
Until then, the notion of "handheld gaming" was mostly the early GameBoy series, and maybe Lynx. The PSP was a whole different category.