So, I have a Wii residing at my house for a while and have been playing. My only complaint is the Wiimotes seem to get assigned a number and don't release that when the wii get turned off. So.. if I turn on the Wii with the mote that was 3 the last time the console was on, it keeps 3rd player.

Am I being dense, or does the 360 truly have a better system here?

The Wii is certainly innovative. The idea of pointing at a screen and having motion sensors as an integral part of the playing experience is certainly something new and fresh in the popular gaming arena.

I think "better" is only a measure of which playing style you prefer.

I'm not talking about style of control. I'm only talking about the ease of connecting a controller that is able to play a game. Both sync easy, but I can't play Wii Sports with the 3rd player controller, it has to be the 1st player controller.

With the 360, when the console goes off, all controllers lose their player number. So you turn the console on with which ever controller and it assumes position 1.

With the Wii (in my experience), the controllers retain their position after the console goes off. So when I grab a random Wiimote and turn on the Wii with it, I'm stuck with the last position that Wiimote was.

I've not had that issue with my Wii continuously. I've had it happen a couple of times, but nothing that bothers me. Then again, I have 1 of 2 Wiimotes that I almost always use as they have a rechargeable battery pack on them. Not sure how I was able to clear them except maybe they ran out of power.

hm.. might try leaving the battery packs out of the motes for a night

I've never had that happen to me. Even if I did, you can easily reset the assigned numbers by I think pressing the 1 and 2 buttons at the same time.