At the same time, how many people don't have an extra USB cord lying around? Male normal USB to female normal USB is a lot easier to dig up than male micro to female normal.

I agree with you to an extent - I think the N900 USB port issue is really very much a luck-of-the-draw(hardware batch, rather) thing - but either way, yes, you don't want to go sticking a giant hard male-USB device into that. At least, not if you're gonna leave any side of that equation unsupported. That would be bad. But I think it's still a versatility-increasing enough device to warrant linking to here. (That same site also has female-usb to female-usb adapters too, just as the one recommended earlier in this thread was, except I think it's cheaper. But that's another matter. There's also an ethernet-to-female-USB adapter in there....)

Anyway, my point is, I think it's useful enough. To each their own of course, and naturally, you shouldn't be handling any hardware if you're not aware of possibly bad things that could happen (such as excessive torque ripping out your USB ports), but presuming you have even one extra USB extender cord lying around (which I do), you can avoid the leverage issue by simply sticking that into the female end of the above adapter, and putting whatever peripherals you want into that. But at the same time, you get the option of something more compact if you need it, instead of needing to break out the cable just to plug in a tiny extremely light peripheral.

Being me, I think it's good to have a female-to-female USB adapter too, but each has their uses, and the benefit of having either changes with what other USB cords/peripherals you have. But by posting that, people get to know of one more option they might not have known about. Whether it's right/preferable for them is up to them at that point.