The XL is indeed out today, along with New Super Mario Bros. 2. Nintendo almost always releases their first-party stuff on Sundays. Its release is a year-and-a-half after the 3DS, and the only real difference is that it's bigger. "Whoring out the DS name" seems a bit cynical to me. Sure, I'm assuming money is the key motivator here, but isn't that true for any business? Don't want it? Don't buy it.
It is stupid that you can't have more than one console per account, though. I'm probably going to get my son an XL for Christmas, and it would be awesome if we could have a shared family account for multiple consoles.
(Disclosure: in case my tone didn't give it away, I'm a huge DS fanboy, admittedly. After the TurboGrafx-16/TurboDuo, it's my favorite console. The original DS, IMO, is home to some of the most amazing handheld games ever created).