@fatalsaint:

That should've read my research. I recall reading somewhere that Nokia regarded Symbian being their main smatphone OS and Maemo 5 (/Meego) would be deployed for top-end smartphones from now on.

I understood that Symbian was to be replaced with a new version, not bthat Maemo would replace Symbian. I think it was referred to as 'Symbian^2' in December when I started thinking about my next device. By the time I decided to buy an N900 in moid-March things had moved on considerably.

As a Symbian user I had been downloading software for years and maemo.org was a new and exciting prospect - I should've tried harder at school!

Being in at the start was part of the experience for me - never had that with a mere phone before, but to come to your final question (what an N900 can offer a totally technically-uninvolved user)< I'd suggest the following:

Image (N900 is sold as being "the most powerful" etc.
Style (beauty is in the eye of the beholder)
Individuality (It's not an iphone. It's very distinctive)
Keyboard (a major plus to some people)
Storage (32GB - big numbers sell...)
Display (I watched some kids in awe in a shop recently)
Colour It's all black - colour does it for some)

All the above are very shallow, but having been in retail motor slaes for years I can tell you how most people's buying patterns are influenced by such seeming trivia.