Assuming that sooner or later Maemo will live in phones rather than "tablets"... and knowing that I peronally think touchscreens are unacceptable in phones... I'll have to keep using S60 phones and just be happy Maemo exists, although it'll no longer be part of my gadget-life.

Or, wait a minute - how about a non-touchscreen device based on something they'd call "almost Maemo"? How easy/difficult would it be to re-use the software underneath the UI for a conventional phone and what exactly is it that would have to be changed?

Help me think about it:
If such a device had a dpad as a pointing device and some extra buttons like current S60 devices have, what would they need to change in order to get Maemo running?
Isn't it just a matter of adapting the HIG for even smaller screens? And maybe replacing Hildon (adapting Qt) by a layer that, say, maps buttons to hardware keys and makes sure applications cannot offer 15 buttons when only 2 hardware keys are available?

Sure such a system would most likely exist in addition to Maemo, not running Maemo software that's designed for touchscreens. But still, it would share a lot of the underlying technical concepts.

What am I missing?
Would it be possible without touching Maemo's non-UI components?