While I know that if this had been taken away from my N810 that I'd show up with at least a torch and angry mob type signs - like "Boo!" and "Heck No, *deb install must not go!" - I can actually sorta see why this was taken away from a mainstream-ish phone.

Either you can get it from the OVI store... or you can dpkg install it via commandline. Both camps are covered, it was the more convenient - and more easily screwed up - middle ground that got lost in this.

The geek in me like they didn't block dpkg - if they did, THEN I'd be truly up in arms if I owned a N900.

And since Maemo 4.1 is ignored, I don't worry about ever losing that functionality on my N810.