Sony, unlike Nitendo, is not suicidal.

Nintendo isn't suicidal. Wii had half the planet talking about it for free, and the jokes get old after a couple of days.

Many players take their consoles seriously; they won't like 'wi'.

People are talking because of the motion sensor controller. Damm. Gotta play tennis on it.

The WHOLE internet was discussing the Wii. They knew about the motion sensors when it was still codenamed Revolution. It was Wii that really had the WHOLE internet paying attention.
What's wrong with Wii? For every sale that the company loses through somebody being silly enough not to buy it because of the name, they'll get five buying it because of the publicity.

*Shurg* Anyone know how it compares with the PS3 in sheer brute force?

Not specifically, but the PS3 is more powerful, simply because of the differences in target audiences and game types. The Wii doesn't need to be as powerful as the PS3 to do what Nintendo want it to do.

Yeesss... but some brawn can't hurt, It has to be atleast a major step above, say, the Xbox or PS2

Of course it is. All of the next-gen consoles are vastly more powerful than the older ones.