Please move this thread to the Maemo 5 forum since this is no hardware related at all. Thanks!

Yes, the ability to install .deb packages directly was removed from the Application Manager GUI and actually Red Pill mode will be removed at some point as well. The reason is simple: pure end users are better off these paths and advanced users should better learn the right way to do these things.

Most end users out there are used to find executable files somewhere and install them directly, without having any notion of a repository or seeing the relevance of the source where you get your software from. The mobile app stores are helping users realizing that having a known source with some QA process is actually a good thing.

If someone really wants to install single deb files he can do it through the usual Debian way.

And because this is an open platform and there are opinions of all kinds, you can also rely on things like http://maemo.org/packages/view/appinstaller/ (haven't tried myself, just saw it the other day and made me recall the day Urho told to Marius and me that he was not very happy about the removal of the deb installation in the HAM UI.