But on the contact list you can type to narrow the list down anyway, so its less of an issue. I am guessing you are referring to using the N900 one-handed but unfortunately, its just not designed for that. Everything about the N900 is designed for two-handed landscape operation, because its designed to be a computer not a phone.

Its far easier to type a few letters than getting out the stylus to operate a scroll bar would be. (speaking as a previous Windows Mobile user here) You can't just bump up the scrollbar size for finger-friendly operation either, you would lose a vast amount of screen space and we would be complaining of too little usable space then. Kinetic scrolling is the not perfect but as close as possible to a happy medium.

As for not allowing the arrow keys to be used in every application that has scrolling lists, that is VERY unlike a PC, so no excuse for that.