I took a look at their battery charger packaging, and it looks exactly like the battery cell packaging. At first I thought it was just a larger "club pack" or something like that.
I think their downfall will be from people stuffing those inside their cameras. They will last about 10 pictures and then leak all over their nice digital camera.
For anyone interested in the differences between chemistries, I shall go into Battery Professor mode:
Alkalines - good for low-drain applications, as internal resistance increases proportionally to current (the higher the current, the less effective capacity remains). In rechargeable cells, they work best if used in a situation where they can be regularly topped up, such as computer mice, electric toothbrushes, etc. For things like clocks and remote controls, while low-drain, you don't really think to take the batteries out and recharge them until they stop working - so I would stick with primary (non-rechargeable) cells. Rechargeable alkalines require a special alkaline charger (some of Pure Energy's chargers can handle both alkalines and NiMHs).
NiMH - good for high-current applications such as digital cameras, electric screwdrivers, flashlights, etc., but they have a high rate of self-discharge, making them inferior to alkalines when used in low-current applications, as the battery will discharge itself before the device gets much use out of them. Thus, you should be recharging them before each use. Some chemistries also like to be conditioned once in a while (full discharge followed by full recharge).
--LSD NiMH - this new type of cell confused the line between the different alkaline/NiMH applications. Low Self-Discharge NiMHs come marked as "hybrid" or "pre-charged" batteries, and can be stored months or even years with a usable charge, just like alkalines, but also have the high-current drain abilities of NiMHs. I would use these for emergency flashlights and anything else you have that is high-current but is inconvenient to recharge before use. There is a slight capacity tradeoff compared to traditional NiMHs.
Lithium, Lithium-Ion, Lithium-Polymer - I've just started playing with these, so don't know much about them yet. My new flashlight uses lithium cobalt ion cells, which supposedly have the energy density of TNT, so I'm doing a lot of research and pointing them away from my face and tender bits for the time being. They seem to behave like NiMHs but have much higher capactiy, as well as a higher voltage. I don't think these are ready for mainstream consumer use yet, as it is very important to keep cells matched - different cells will have different discharge rates, even ones from the same factory but made on different days. Once the voltages are imbalanced, one cell will try to charge the other, overheating it and resulting in a "vent-with-flame" incident, where the cell vents hydrogen gas and ignites it. I have read of one case where a LEO holding a lithium-powered tactical flashlight had it blow up in his hands because his 123A cells were likely imbalanced. Same applies to lithium-powered digital cameras, though laptop batteries and "packs" usually have some sort of cell balancing circuit to prevent this. If you do have a digital camera that takes 123A cells, get them from a flashlight store like 4sevens.ca - you can find them for $1-2 a cell compared to $10 in a department store.
