Was about to say the same thing at What Red Line, what people seem to be forgetting is that the A380 whilst certainly bigger than the 747 is not THAT much bigger. Certainly not as great a leap as the 747 was over its nearest rival at launch. I bet you could get nearly 550 people in a 747 if it was an all economy layout, and ElAl managed nearly a thousand on an evacuation flight a good few years ago.
A lot of people also seem to think that the US airlines are a very important market for the A380, unfortunatly not, yes Airbus would love to sell some to US airlines, but look at who is actually buying planes around the world, it's not big US carriers, its growing asian/mid east carriers. The US market will over the next 20 years become less and less important, because it has nearly reached saturation level, everyone has pretty much the number of planes they want. so orders for the industry as a whole are at a replacement level. Far Eastern/Asian/Mid East carriers are growing and need more planes every year.