Everything that could be automated should be as soon as possible. This should be the priority now! As the user base for Maemo devices increases, there will be more developers for it too. This will mean more applications to test and this backlog will become only worse if something is not done to make the testing faster/easier.

The problem is that many of these new users have a very limited experience with Linux (like me) or no previous experience at all. Therefore something as "simple" as checking optification might already discourage potential beta testers, who might be more than qualified to check the functionality of the application and provide valuable feedback.