Those who want "a desktop Linux environment in their pocket" are served with Hildon. If that is not good enough they're free to install other firmware or install KDE or GNOME or whatever on their device. The freedom to do so they have however it will not ship with that by default. It is embedded platform (Hildon, ARM, ...) for a reason.

I want 1) pocket/embedded optimized Linux environment in my pocket, 2) a useful terminal 24/7 usable 3) and then I will think of desktop environment; in the form of remote desktop no less. I believe the latter is very difficult to accomplish on a mobile device, but I've used netbooks for this purpose with little difficulty. So logically it has less priority than #1 or #2. #2 requires certain hardware features or combinations thereof. For example, a good virtual keyboard might be good enough for some. But none I tried does it for me. As for #3, if you 24/7 connectivity, you do not need an X environment to run X software remotely. So if you had such a remote desktop client on Android you'd be set, although it'd have to translate X protocol to whatever Android is running.

Convergence device vs specialized device can have many more examples. It seems the N800 form factor is rather feature poor (but also much cheaper sold). So while it could be a multimedia player (audio, video) it wouldn't be a GPS with navigation system or digital camera or accelerometer able to be used with gaming. The number of (micro)SD slots versus internal flash is also something on which community is divided. Type of screen is also partly related to finger/stylus but you could also think of glossy vs greasy. Oh, and d-pad or even the place of the d-pad is also a hot item.