Don't really need it. I personally would have preferred them to sticking with a STB style piece of hardware for more performance, but since it's all HDMI hanging off your TV now I'm less inclined to try and load other stuff onto it besides video entertainment apps already available on the Amazon store.
An Amazon Fire does not run pure Android but rather a bastardization of it. I would pay the extra if they put plain Android on it, or just unlocked the tablet so that I could with less hassle.