Well, for one thing, it's still much better suited to non-touch devices. Plus there are quite a few interesting applications not available for the N900 at present.

S60v5 isn't nearly as terrible as critics claim, but it does have a slight learning curve (inherited from its keyboarded roots) that other touch OSes lack. Hopefully Symbian^3 will lessen that, but obviously that remains to be seen.

Either way, there is room in the world for more than one operating system.

I use Maemo on a daily basis because I like having a decent Linux box in my pocket, not because of some failing of Symbian.

Needless to say, I hope the MeeGo phone, whatever it turns out to be, has the N8's camera and optics. It's killer. If it was available today, I'd be seriously tempted to buy one. I'd also like to see a better slide mechanism. (pick up an E75 sometime and compare it to the N900)