Linux has the ability to be somewhat of a dual-usage system: either go geek and use the raw power it posesses, or cover it up under some scripts/software and make it 'just work'.
One thing they should do is not break backwards compatibility with previous maemos. This would make the old (tried&true) apps work with minimal porting, and reduce some of the gap in apps.
Another useful idea would be to create a mechanism to allow normal users to easily get help from more experienced ones. What i mean: instead of being told "go to terminal, do sudo gainroot etc", the user could be given a script (made ad-hoc by community members) to diagnose/fix the problem. It is possible now to create ad-hoc .deb's, but that's complicated. People paid to give this kind of support would be something innovative and imho a great advantage.