I have now used E90 for over 2 yrs, had 9300 before that for few years. They both have landscape AND portrait hardware keyboard, so they kinda don't contradict anything. They have a keyboard for each orientation. Actually all Nokia phones that you mentioned have two sets of HW keyboards. N900 have only one. That makes the supposed default orientation kinda obvious to me.

I read this whole thread last night at work, all ~44 pages of it at the time, and since I am not a developer nor heavy user of previous tablets of anykind, I felt little bit shy to participate. Still, having used the E90, pretty wonderful form factor, I have started to miss more usage in the portrait mode. But also, since it has the communicator/PDA inside with the best HW keyboard so far, I know I need the landscape too. I am torn between features and usability on this. I hope the portrait gets more official support tho.

But, I need to say this more, whoever says that portrait is not important, is equally wrong as are they who say portrait is more important than landscape. People should get choices, options, chance to choose. I am glad 3rd.party software have the option to choose to support portrait.

On the thread as a whole, I reckon people should use the device a little more before passing judgements on design/development failures on Nokia's part.