I bought into the Philips Hue system but why?

After my blog post asking about which smart lighting system works best for me… I choose the Philips Hue system but why?

1. Philips made its simple REST API public! Yeh!
2. Seen activity of people hacking around with the Philips hue lights.
3. Replace my aging and dying Philips Light/wake-up clock.
   It keeps waking me up at the wrong time of the night and missing the alarm time! I barely use it because of this. Looking forward to combining my sleep pattern with my wake up. May even help with my alertness?
   
4. Have better control over my living room lighting.
   I like warm lights at night and hate the way the lights are in my living room at the moment but don’t want to do the massive alterations to change it at the moment.
5. I really want to experiment with XBMC and a Ambelight style setup