Others have pointed out in this very thread that Adobe's demo of Flash 10.1 on the N900 involved no 10.1-specific features. If that's the case, then it's difficult to be sure exactly what was running on that N900.

Adobe certainly caused false expectations here and elsewhere with their early proclamations of "Flash 10.1 is GPU accelerated!" The tiny asterisk leading to the "on Windows" disclaimer was difficult to catch. And with that benefit removed, the hope of seeing 10.1 performing better than 9.x on the same hardware becomes less bright.