There is more in a package's life than hit an run

We try to enforce proper packaging because we care about the user experience. The AM is not some magical thing that always does the right thing, it is uses debian versioning and everything included to do the proper thing.

I admit that maemo.org extras* non-free is not as friendly for package uploading, but you got to understand what you are asking with a non-free package. We (maemo.org) are asked to host a blob we know very little about. Checking the packaging only gives us a small indication of the 'quality'.

The extras assistant is currently not supporting non-free apps, simply because there are very little of them. Features for free app are being used a lot more. That said, I am willing to improve this.

There are a lot of people willing to help you improve your packaging and encourage you to get your packages in Extras. The whole Extras-testing and QA part done by the community is key to improve user experience. It takes a bit of work from you, but on the other hand gives you exposure on every N900 as Extras is there by default.