Moved to a Motorola Droid 4.
Flashed it to use CyanogenMod 11.
Installed a GSM patch.
Installed Debian Kit, upgraded its Debian to Debian Wheezy.
Installed SystemScriptExecutor (executes scripts at init & shutdown).
Configured it to mount & unmount Debian at init & shutdown correspondingly, & added quite a few tweaks as well.
I've got many things the N900 used to provide except for ability to launch GUI apps from command line.
But otherwise, works great so far. The more powerful hardware definitely helps lots. No more issue with operator network's fast dormancy configuration too.

kh