So let me get this straight, the basic system has 8GB of storage right, and the OS takes up about 5GB of storage from that 8GB right, or am I calculating something wrong here. This leaves basic owners with very little storage if I am indeed correct, especially since there will likely be many more huge updates in the future.

Also can I officially consider the regular Wii shop and virtual console dead, as in there will be no more releases for the Wii version of the e-shop or whatever it is called now? If so I will go spend my points, I know they will carry over to a new system but I may as well get the content while I still have a Wii should I decide to get the Wii U in the future.

The update size isn't so bad, its the lack of storage on the 8GB system that is, the updates on other systems are much faster but I just downloaded an over 800MB update from Apple in the form of iOS 6.0.1 or whatever the latest version is.