Without trawling through the whole thread, so at risk of repeating posts, I find it hard to believe/understand why the desktop has been got rid of - I find it a massive pain in the arse to scroll through all my installed programs in order to find something. having a desktop, or even better, multiple desktops makes it a lot easier to have programs that use use often right there, plus shortcuts to a frequently used number is well handy.

The way the N9 seems to work is akin to getting rid of the 'All programs' button in windows startbar and just dumping everything you install onto the desktop..