The only thing that dissapoints me about the PS3, is when they say it's reverse compatable. They meen some PS games, not PS2 games, (damn I hate when they do that). so my collection of need for speed and the other 7 games were useless with the PS3.
Sony gave some people the shaft on the backwards compatibility. I have an "old" PS3, as in I bought it ~6 months or so after it came out. It has the memory card readers, four USBs, and weighs like 25 pounds-the huge one. Mine
is completely backwards compatible, every PS2 and even PS game I've fed it, it plays just fine, and creates "virtual memory cards" to save game files. Some games, but not all, it can re-scale and/or upscale to play on an HDTV, but that's kind of hit and miss.
However since the PS3's original retail was astronomical ($600) and everyone was bitching about it, Sony started looking for ways to cut costs and make it cheaper on shelves. So the "extra" features like the backwards compatibility, memory card readers, and a LOT of the wireless network features got axed, and you only get 2 USB slots instead of 4 (though I saw a new one and it had four again, so maybe they put that back).
If you're set on having one that can play your old games (and why not), find a used one at a game store. If it has the flip-up door with memory card slots, it's an original model that's fully compatible with old games. You won't miss anything with an older one either, they get the same firmware updates and such the new ones do. The only difference is newer ones have bigger HDDs installed, but you can swap it out in about 5 minutes, I got rid of the original 60gb in mine and put a 250 in there. Super easy backup/restore feature using a USB hard drive.