I seem to recall you being similarly skeptical about the iPad - and whether or not that was you, I think this is an equally transofrmatve product.
There is nothing artists (and scientists) like better than a new toy. The win here is a camera with a standard fixed orientation towards its subject; high-quality optics are sacrificed for reproducibility. I can think of numerous creative/education applications for this just from looking at the still pictures, and I haven't clicked on any of the videos yet.
- let ants walk on it to study swarming behavior
- put petri dishes on it and leave them overnight to measure bacterial growth
- liquids with different viscosities/specularities for artistic purposes; I've tried 'painting' with dishwashing liquid squirted out of the bottle and a camera, but it's difficult
- rolling marbles around for stochastic video effects
- make arty models of things in whatever medium you like and then wave them around and have them scanned into 3d without any tedious calibration/scaling
- massive possibilities for gestural control of music/animation
I could go on and on. Think of this like a 'macroscope.' The advantage of a microscope is not just the lenses that let you look at very small things, but the form factor that makes it easy and efficient to put your samples in position and focus upon them. You could make an effective microscope that was like a telescope and that you held in your hands to look at small objects, but as soon as you think about it you realize what an utter pain in the ass it would be to use because of the constant refocusing and reframing.
I think it's too expensive and there will be an app shortage at first, but I feel comfortable predicting that this (or an iteration by a competitor) will be a fixture in any creative/educational/lab environment in short order. In fact, this is what has been missing fromt eh 3d-printing side; most of the desktop printers are Not Very Good and building CAD models is tedious for most people. How much nicer to have a high quality interactive scanner and just send the refined model to a facility with a high-quality printer, CNC or sintering device for delivery or pickup.