Rather specialised use though which is my point for stills photography.

Not really. Its specialized only in terms of price and weight etc. Same as those very large telephoto lens.

For this application one could well foresee someone taking a video of their kid playing football or running along the beach with the family dog, and wanting to pick out some choice stills. It seems like a typical bit of consumer kit to me.

Spot on there, it has general consumer in mind sure enough.
What I meant was that although high speed shooting certainly has it's place not many stills photographers actually take their shots most of the time at their cameras fastest frame rate let alone 14fps nor would wish to. For most subjects machine gunning does not produce the best shot. Proper video is another ball game entirely.

I think the most important thought that manufacturers will have is, we can sell loads of these to loads of people who will never use them past the initial buzz period. Same as most things really.
Dean.

Interesting... but I do not care videos... I did not decide for a canon 500D because was making ALSO video... so stay with 450D...ans tay with photography...