Canoscan LiDE 60...should be Canoscan LIED

I've been working with computers for around thirty years and have not seen any gear as spectacularly underwhelming as the Canon Canoscan LiDE 60. I'd read good reviews on the LiDE 500, but couldn't find it in stock at CompUSA, BestBuy, Office Depot, or Circuit City, so I thought the LiDE 60 would be worth a try given Canon's reputation and long history of making scanners.
This thing is pathetic. The supposedly vertical (on its side)arrangement is positioned by a plastic widget that tilts the scanner on its side; there's no larger ledge on the scan platform to hold paper in place. It's as effective as standing any typical flatbed scanner on its side and trying to use it vertically. It doesn't even come close to working, and the instructions even say you have to hold the scanner lid closed to use it in the vertical position. Hold it closed while you type and click on the kludgy software? That doesn't fly. I can't understand how this product passed Canon QA. I guess they LiED about it to the retailers.
The ArcSoft photo software crashed consistently on my Win98SE computer, despite the box claiming compatibility, so I couldn't save a scan using it, and the scan that was visible on the frozen ArcSoft program was of useless quality -- black script (albeit somewhat fine, it wasn't microscopic) on white background was illegible. The Canon software is not even in the same century of development as Visioneer's PaperPort -- in fact, last century's PaperPort, circa 1995, far outperforms the Canon-supplied material in utility and versatility. Don't waste your time or money on this one.