I have to agree that "a few hundred well-done apps are more useful" - though, we might all have a different set of a few hundred in mind (I don't bother with games on a phone/tablet - well, maybe chess).

But 100,000 gives bragging rights, and this is a marketing-fuled world, like it or not.

If I could get that health tracker I used on my N73/N75 from beta labs on the N900 I've on order, I would be happy. But that might not be of much interest to many.

So, perhaps to get a few hundred that meet a broad range of apps people regard as "good/well-done", you might need to have a library of a few thousand.

I agree that finding something among the chaff in Apple's app store is hard - but that's a categorization and search problem. A much easier problem to solve than inventory of applications.

I say this from the perspective of someone who has owned all three iPhones - and now own none.