And for the record I HATE the sound of the Maemo 6 desktop.

The idea of one large pannable desktop just makes me cringe. I briefly had a pannable desktop on my PC and couldn't stand it, likewise I only ever have a single desktop too as I forget which desktop which app is on and all the switching between them just gets confusing. I tried keeping Desktop 2 for GIMP, but inevitably when I am on Desktop 2 I forget and end up with applications spread across the two desktops at random.

In Maemo 6 (and I see no reason not to have it on Maemo 5 too) I would much rather as I described above, have a completely independent desktop for portrait so that you could customise it for different needs. The chances are in portrait mode your usage patterns are different anyway so having the same desktop is not intuitive.

For the record, I HATE how YouTube on the iPod Touch forces you into landscape to watch the videos when all navigation/searching is portrait. That is a really good example of a very poor design IMO. That is one thing I like about Maemo 5 mostly being landscape, if the primary purpose of your application is best served landscape then it should stick with landscape.

For the applications which can comfortably support both modes, I would also prefer to CHOOSE to switch modes not have it automatic (though obviously you could have a toggle for people who prefer automatic screen rotation). If I bring the device out of screen-off mode in landscape, default to landscape and vice versa. There are too many times when ASR can trip up, like when I am watching a movie in bed. Obviously as Maemo 5 currently stands I will be able to do that fine, but once portrait mode is implemented (which we need for easy music navigation) then using ASR would cause the same problem.

Overall though, I think perhaps Nokia made the right choice. I would much rather be stuck in landscape mode than have them badly implement portrait support. Although the lack of portrait keyboard support out of the box was pretty stupid, hopefully its just a lack of the bitmaps so once you install one portrait app with on-screen keyboard then its available for every other portrait app - rather than reinventing the wheel.