In my experience, the lack of mid-fork eyelets isn't a big deal. The Tubus LM-1 is a great solution.
However, I find the lack of dropout eyelets to be a big deal. It makes running fenders and racks very tricky. You can add some hardware that clamps into the skewer, but then it comes loose again whenever you need to remove the wheel. A big pain.

Personally, if I decided that my bike should have fenders, I wouldn't settle on a bike with out dropout eyelets. I bought a carbon 'cross bike last year, and a huge selling point for me was that it was designed for fender-ability, with proper eyelets.