Ive had mine since december and its fine. I think all these posts about wear and tear, design flaws etc etc are just folk who have been using the n900 roughly, have maybe dropped it, using greasy fingers and so on!
I take good extra care of all my things, I haven't come accross any of these sort of issues so far.

If I am wrong in what I said then please do correct me as all I keep seeing are these posts about folk complaining or reporting of such things.