My take on it is that it's overreaction with a basis in truth. It's fine to be skeptical about the N8 due to the N97, but lets not forget that the N97 was an isolated disaster. Talking about it like it's a pattern isn't fair.

S60v5 wasn't very good, that's true, but as an N900 user I'm sad to say that whenever I need to really rely on my phone, my SIM card goes back in my 5800. Anything faster than ARM11 consumes too much energy and the UI, while great, isn't as phone-optimized. I knew that when I bought it, of course.

This is Nokia's progression imho:

Pre-Symbian: had the best UI designers, best hadware designers and best exterior designers. Cemented the lead by building the best logistics.

Symbian first years: UI design starts becoming less polished. S60 is good, but could obviously be better. Minor unexplained annoyances. Are the best retired, fired or working on s40? Don't know. But Nokia doesn't react, because competition is worse. Still, relatively speaking, s60 isn't as good as s40.

S60v3: Symbian still stagnating without threats, but the exterior designers have become so obsessed with optimizing the materials that they forget about looks. Nokia's products are either too mundane or too crazy. They become arrogant and think people will buy their high end products even if the plastic looks a bit cheap. They are correct, but end up going too far and setting themselves up for failure later.

S60v5: the 5800 looks good, build quality and plastic are great in its price segment, But people were expecting more, for more money. Image suffers. Hardware engineers still top notch, but now Symbian is so behind there's no point to include even a gpu. Nokia isn't capable of changing everything at once, because it is now compromised on all fronts right when the competition hits an unexpected home run.

Recent years: Nokia is trying to change everything at once, looking slow and incompetent in the progress. But everything will be different in half a year, AS LONG AS they execute flawlessly. They painted themselves into such a bad corner that there's no room for any mistakes.