You know, while this is heavy compared to the ARM family of tablets, for a Windows Pro tablet, its not that far out of line. The 10'ish inch Surface Pro weighs 2 pounds, the 11'ish inch Iconia W700 weighs 2.1, and this 13 inch tablet weighs 2.4. The Surface Pro itself only lasts about 4.5 hours and, while the Iconia lasts around 8, the higher end specs on this Asus device blows either of these other tablets out of the water - more RAM, more storage, better processor. The screen is also 2 inches larger than the Iconia's so a 15% increase in weight makes a degree of sense.
I love my light devices these days and I'm actually using a Surface RT for work just because it is so light while doing all I need, but.. The specs/weight on this thing are not horribly out of line for hardware of this type. Price these things between $500 and $1000 depending on which hardware profile you're looking at and I could see some people going for these.