This is how someone can sell a Keurig machine. That's not espresso and the coffee is a poor value. Seriously folks, is it that hard to make your own coffee that's better than these things?
The convenience is hard to beat. I recently switched from a drip coffee maker to a Keurig, and I love it. My wife and I don't drink much coffee and so making 12 cups is a huge waste, we end up throwing away 3/4 of the pot. I also leave for work fairly early (and I don't have a lot of time to spend making coffee in the morning) and so being able to put a pod in the Keurig and get decent coffee out of it a minute or two later is really nice.
I can't agree with their attempt to use "DRM" to prevent users from buying pods from independent vendors (and arguments that they need to "control the experience" so that users don't buy low quality pods and get poor coffee ring hollow to me) but the machine itself is great.
Fortunately, their efforts to control the k-cup market seem doomed to failure in any case.
I can understand the multiple cup problem, it sucks to throw out coffee. For anyone else in your situation, check out an Aeropress [0]. It can make a single cup, it's easy, and I have to boil the water to make tea for my wife anyway :) Less waste than a Keurig, and cheaper TCO.
And every time you make a cup of coffee you throw away a little plastic container. It's inefficient, expensive and wasteful, and it supports DRM. Putting some grounds into a filter and then composting them afterwards should not be a huge inconvenience.