It seems like it's got all the buzzwords and bells and whistles covered--18 megapixels, iFCL metering, high-spec video, lots of programmed shooting modes on a big honking top-deck dial,and it's still a Rebel; the Rebel series cameras are some of the world's top-selling d-slrs, in all markets. The lower-end models sell in hugely disproportionate numbers compared to the high-end models, and substantially faster than even the mid-tier bodies. it does not shoot very fast, but then 3.7 frames per second at 18 megapixels is a pretty fair amount of data to move off the sensor, process,and write to card,and this camera cannot be equipped with the mondo image processing capabilities of the higher end bodies--that is simply not needed, and would cut into profit margin. I bet it sells pretty well!
It is amazing to me how quickly Canon has iterated the T1i to the T2i--it seems like just over one year since the T1i hit the streets and its successor has already been announced.