First thoughts about Small World

So I got this Small World game that everyone's talking about in the mail recently. I really don't understand what all the fuss is. It's not that great of a game. If you like dancing children and world peace and all that garbage, it's pretty good I suppose, but otherwise...don't waste your money.

Seriously, I read through the rules last night for my copy of Small World that finally arrived, and there were a few big differences between it and Vinci that I noticed right away:

1) It plays for a set number of turns, not to a set score. Everyone gets the same number of turns.
2) Player score is hidden information.
3) I could not find any rule that penalizes you for expanding into territories next to your own declined civilizations. Declined civs don't disappear unless they're conquered or you decline a SECOND civilization.
4) It has different boards and different maps depending on the number of people that are playing, not just one set map for any number of players.
5) There's a die called something like a "reinforcement army die" that lets everyone attack at the end of their turn with a couple of armies that they don't actually have. It's kind of strange and I'm not sure how well that's going to work out. I guess it encourages conquest, though.

I'm sure there are a few more that are covered ad nauseum on BGG, but I've largely stayed away from the BGG discussions because I didn't want my opinion or experience to be slanted negatively by other people's criticism. Overall, I think it looks pretty fun. I'm not gaming this weekend or Monday, but hopefully we can get it to the table the following weekend.