I haven't researched this one, but isn't there some problem with the study of the "Hobbit" material? I seem to remember various people arguing over who could study it or something, but initially only person really had access. I seem to recall that the bones have not been widely studied or described in a journal or something. As such, you have a few opinions on what it is, but the profession has not yet had a good chance to really test it. Give folks a few years and they probably will have a good idea what the "Hobbit" really is. If it's a "a vertically-challenged dude with a brain impedement" that will be confirmed pretty quickly (and it may already have been confirmed for all I know).
But Homo habilis has been around a couple of decades so it is a bit more familiar to most researchers, and there are a number of different specimens. Folks may not know its exact position in the scheme of things, but I bet they are pretty close.
A fossil of a diminutive human nicknamed "the Hobbit" likely represents a previously unrecognized species of early humans, according to the results of a detailed comparison of the fossil's brain case with those of humans, apes and other human ancestors...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050304175249.htm
Looks like the "vertically-challenged dude with a brain impedement" hypothesis has been falsified.