It is out of discussion that swipe is clever, beautiful and efficient and can be customised.

Imo, what Keferen points out very well and more detailed than I would every be able to bring up the patience for, is the inconsistency of underlying system interface.
This is a bit of a frankenstein mix on the N9 while the N900 offers system wide consistency and coherence.
With the N900 they, whoever were the gods working at Nokia that made it happen, have finally shown understanding of interface design.

Lack of user friendly interface design has brought Symbian down and would make Maemo stand out.

It is surprising not to say frustrating to see that part of the logic and learnings from the N900 have vaporised in the N9.

Because if the N9 had the interface consistency of the N900 with addition of swipe overlay, it would make it a better phone for all of us.

The N9 users, even new, no N900 owner and never been in the market for a Nokia Internet Tablet would have had a better device if Keferen's points would have been respected.
But the points needed to be integrated from a start. "there is an app for that" can fix a lot will miss the beautiful level of integration that makes Maemo 5 still the pinnacle of mobile OS design. (Apart from WebOS , hehe)