As the first public release of Windows for ARM processors, Surface RT is probably going to have rough edges for quite some time, not to mention limited software

As the first public release of Windows for ARM processors, Surface RT is probably going to have rough edges for quite some time, not to mention limited software support, so it makes sense that they're being conservative with the pricing. If they dumped them on the market, they'd still get pummeled by poor reviews, their margins would be nil, their partners would be irate, and they'd have a much bigger support issue on their hands. The people they really need to be buying these at launch are developers who want to bet on a future market for Windows RT apps, at least until they've had a chance to fix some of the bigger bugs.