Well that's somewhat less impressive when it's almost three months since the device was announced. In the meantime I've seen the Motorola Droid go from announcement to release in a very smooth and transparent fashion.

The N97 was announced Dec 2008 and not released until June 2009.

Nokia is failing to deliver its products in a timely fashion and I seriously doubt anyone in the company is patting themselves on the backs over it. I also don't doubt they're working to do better.

Where they're not striving to do better is with consumer transparency with their release process. As I mentioned already this is a feature of every Nokia release - the "release announcement" is made but nobody can find the thing for sale. I see no indication at all Nokia considers this a problem or that it's something they're endeavouring to fix.

If Nokia thinks I shouldn't care when I get the product (as demonstrated by them not telling me) then why should I pay €500+ for it?

I strongly suspect Nokia does not share this view.