Eh, I don't see what the big deal about 'hunting down apps' is. I think that they've done a really good job with the maemo site, and with the package manager to put everything in a central place (Install things from the site, opens up package manager). It's dirt easy to find what you're looking for and install it. In fact, I'd say that it's just about the easiest system that I've seen for finding new apps and getting them installed, especially for a mobile device.

maemo.org/downloads - official site where you can search for almost any maemo app available
gronmayer.com/it/index.php?lang=en - site that allows you to install all of the available repositories at once

As far as the quality of the apps, as has been said before, the apps that ship with OS2007/2008 all pretty much work the way they are supposed to. OS2008 has come leaps and bounds over OS2007, as far as integration between all of the communication apps. I haven't had to spend any time since flashing to OS2008 fixing anything.

If you just toss a couple of 16GB SDHC cards in there, you can get twice the capacity of apple's current iPod Touch. There are some really good third party apps for playback, like canola2 and kagu. AND, you can use your bluetooth headphones to listen to your music.

Plus, the n800 plays flash videos natively, ie you can watch _anything_ on youtube.