I want to thank everyone for their very helpful and informative replies in this thread. Thanks to everyone's feedback I went ahead and got a N900. Had it for about 10 days so far enjoying using the new Maemo and hardware. Here are my thoughts specifically compared to the N810:

- At first the screen size feels tiny, much smaller than half an inch, gaming and ebook reading is definitely worse on this screen. This concerned me the most, after a few days using you don't really notice it at all, but the N810 does feel huge in comparison. The real thing is that the N900 is a lot more comfortable to hold in your hand. Now I understand why people want "portrait" software since it's comfortable to hold in that position, I hadn't realized how uncomfortable the N810 is in this regard. Although conversely portrait software is more necessary since there is so much less vertical space on the N900.
- Screen is noticeably brighter
- Screen/UI is much more responsive than the N810's
- Unit fits better in a pocket than the N810
- Not sure why they even bothered with the kickstand, N810's is so much better
- Included media player is less choppy than the N810
- Everything runs faster, taskswitching is far faster, emulators are faster, all games run faster, web browsing is considerably faster, I haven't tried overclocking but I can hardly imagine it being faster. This alone makes a huge difference.
- Gaming controls are worse, smaller keys is bad, no d-pad is bad. Having the arrows on the right is weird. Extended gaming using the keyboard fatigues my thumbs a lot worse than the N810 as there is so much less lee-way for your other fingers to support the weight of the unit. Your thumbs hold most of the weight and they have to be bent more to access the controls which are closer to the edges than before. Hopefully the gamepad thing will solve this issue.

Overall a solid release, pleased with the direction Nokia is going and glad this platform is getting more mainstream.