Does anyone know how different is Android kernel from Maemo kernel?
Is most of the hardware abstraction handled by Linux kernel, or the Dalvik VM internals and library? Is the kernel accessible? Ie. can I supplant my own init script and run custom binary in place of Dalvik?
Is the Android hardware hackable? Ie. can I get direct access to the root partition and put custom content in?

I'm asking because I would like to get a better piece of hardware than N900 and port Maemo (ie. Mer) on it. But if android hardware is a closed black box, I won't bother.
I don't have experience with Android (and don't want to have any ) and I wouldn't like to spent a lot of money on hardware I could not hack.