I agree with you on the risk of parts of it becoming a deadend shortly thereafter. Which is one of the reasons Mer is actually 'MaEmo Reconstructed", and not "Fremantle backport to N8x0". While a backport may have been easier, such a backport would be unsustainable and would become a deadend shortly after as more developers move on to newer devices. So, we decided to take the difficult road - which does take longer time but will be more interesting over time.