I didn't really want it for RMS-inspired freedom, as a hardware hacker/tinkerer I think it would be interesting to own a machine where I could change the way the BIOS worked, where I can get full access to the datasheets.
Some of RMS's policies and ideas and thoughts seem completely foreign to me... for example, I absolutely love my iPhone and enjoy working on OS X as my day to day machine, but every so often I really just want to tinker and that is when I enjoy hardware/electronics (such as the MSP430, Atmel AVR, and others)...
Yeah, this is the same reason I would like it. I'd actually like to hack on the BIOS and learn more about the full stack of technology in general. I think if you only worked in terminal it would be quite enough beef to run with. I think X would even work alright if you ran with a low end WM or none at all. You're probably not going to get LibreOffice going but I bet Abiword runs great. I was running X on Pentium II with no WM recently so I think it would be good on this machine.
It's kinda amusing that in your quest for more RMS-inspired freedom you came in contact with two of his companies-non-gratae.