WAP failed; yet RSS succeeded. There are tons of optimalizations for non-desktop browsers. Opera Mobile for example compresses data. Memory footprints of mobile browsers must be low too. The browsers must be optimized for the hardware input (T9, touchscreen, hardware keyboard, stylus). Applications, including browsers, must be optimized for the screen resolution. And even the architecture. Furthermore, there is no multi touch possible with stylus so you can forget zooming in and out easily (which gives the user a reasonable accurate precision good enough for almost all user cases IMO; except something like precision drawing; for that you'd buy a Wacom or use your old stylus optimized OS/device) while if you optimize your application for finger usage you will allow implementing such since it gives the user a clear advantage. You even see layouts optimized for 1) desktop 2) T9 (traditional mobile) 3) finger usage (iPhone). Are you understanding the impact of this? Hint: no stylus optimized web sites exist and they will never exist. That means your browser experience on the end point of web designers will not improve for you!! Good luck and have fun hacking around that while I simply use my fingers to navigate on an iPhone-optimized website. Speaking of, MobileSafari zooms in on an input box when you click on it. Same for text you double click on. Zooming difficult? These are great features indeed.

Something like X Chat can run on a remote computer you log in to. You simply resume your session much like when using screen(1). Or you'd prefer to run an IRC client which is actually optimized for usage on the tablet.

Can you give examples what drives you nuts?

On a side note: I do agree that the fact the device runs an X client and X server is a potential strong positive point in some niche cases.

Not really. Usage patterns are limited for a reason because sometimes less is more. You cannot build a car which is good at everything you cannot build an OS or hardware device which is good at everything either. A stylus is a cheap component, but does use space on the device.

Meanwhile, software wise you don't lose any code whatsoever, and you are free to optimize the UI for stylus and run all the desktop apps on the device you want. In fact, I'd bet running XFCe or old Hildon will be just easy using Ubuntu or Mer. However, I believe only a (vocal) minority will opt for this path instead of the default path of finger optimized UI.

Maemo 4 tried this, and I believe it failed miserably at it but Nokia learned that they have to decide for either or invest a lot of time and energy into a UI which handles both well.