It's hard to hold an entire community to one side of a binary choice. If you're finding the same individuals have expressed both the above sentiments, then it would be interesting to know why their views have changed. Otherwise, you can't rule out the variety stemming from simply different people possessing different views, especially since the community has a massive turnover in active posters during the lifetime of the N900.

We have our fair share of both "Flash or die" and "Flash must die" members, for instance. They seem to appear in waves in any thread that touches upon the plug-in.

Personally, I agree with you that a device without a bundled X term would be a step back. On the other hand, I can understand the average phone buyer might see an X term as ranking among the most useless applications imaginable. Therefore, I'd be satisfied by a hidden, hotkey-accessible one.