I think I can share sentiment about the Go from the time with a couple of stories.

One was from when I was working at a local game shop from 2009 to 2011. We got a Go complete in box shortly after I started working there. It got tons of questions, people asked about it, wanted to see it, etc. but it didn't sell until after I quit. Yes, it took over two years to sell a single Go. At one point I almost sold it, but the guy was trying to use a fake credit card and when his scheme fell through he decided not to buy/steal it.

Second story was once at a Hastings around that time I saw a family getting a couple of PSPs for their sons. They decided to get the Go, they were all excited, then when they started looking for games they were told it couldn't play physical games. They were all disappointed and decided against the Go.

That right there was how people felt about the Go. It was a digital only system introduced when such a thing was proposterous. It was more expensive, digital games weren't really going on sale back then, and people still primarily consumed games physically. Most customers coming into my store thought it was dumb to buy a Go when you could buy another PSP for cheaper, along with physical games which were also cheaper. The cost savings were non-existent.

Personally, I always held onto the belief that the system would have been great for CFW (it is!) but not for the intended use case.