Well, not that I am saying they are stupid, but if Nokia (well, Linux distros in general) were clever enough, they'd packaged each application in its own directory letting it write and read its data files from the application's directory.
A la Mac OS X.
That'd be REALLY clever and would make up a REALLY clean file system (an 'Apps' directory on the root and one on the memory card, that would be looked for apps whenever the card is inserted in).

Also this has big advantages: installing or removing an application it's just a matter of copy or removing the directory.
To mantain a list of installed application there would, indeed, be a sort of installer that, after JUST copying the application (let's use Mac terminology here) 'bundle', would update the list of installed application.

Would THAT be great ?
I think it REALLY would be.

--
anidel