When I saw yesterday's Astronomy Pic o' the Day (
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070808.html), it said it wasn't a rover, and I had my "Ah ha!" moment why no airbags. But all your reasons (and many more) make sense. After all, you guys had years to decide all this.
I seem to be lucky this week. First seeing Phoenix go up. Last night I got home just in time to see the shuttle launch on broadcast TV -- didn't even have time to pull out my laptop to get it on NASA-TV. But NASA-TV was a couple of minutes behind "live", so I got to see most of it again!
What did you do for your 2009 mission, Eric? Anything interesting?