I like guns and armor and stuff like that. But I got to admit I useually get a gun for the pictures as well. But overall there isn't a lot of differences in guns. Every gun in one category does basically the same amount of damage. The difference might be one of them comes with an internal smartlink where the next one gets an internal gas system. No major differences. You could spend $30 bucks buying a book of guns and get 200 pages of guns with different pictures... but still in terms of stats, the same ten or so guns as found in the main book.
One thing that sets Shadowrun apart from most other roleplaying games is the fact that there is a story going on. I think this is why Shadowrun has become my favorite roleplaying game. It does something that computer/console games can't do...it evolves. The best part is, you get to help it evolve.
I admit, I'd like more official answers...but at the sametime if those answers don't exist, then that clearly gives me the freedom to explore wherever I want, and make the decisions on my own. Maybe down the road I'll end up contradicting the "official" storyline but likely that wouldn't be a big deal. A lot of people I play with wouldn't buy every shadowrun book anyways, so they probably wouldn't have any clue what the official canon answer was.
I don't think shadowrun would be nearly as fun without the metaplot. I want to run Dawn of the Artifacts because it deals with metaplot. I like over arching campaigns that tell a story. If I wanted to a storyless game, I'd spend my cash on WOW or that hack N slash rpg game that seems so popular....
And I can't wait to get my hands on Conspiracy Theories and Street Legends ...For the metacontent they hold.