Helmuth, arora, you guys are right! I didnt think of the ios way. I've only been used to winmo and uiq prior to maemo. Both these used the same methodology as n900. I never really thought about slide to answer as a feature rather than an eye candy. Thanks for opening my eyes.

However, i was thinking why all my previous phones all behaved the same. Then i got it- they all have a resisitve screen-like the n900. So, if the screen is on, it basically means that touching with anything is registered. And do you know what happens when we simultaneously click two points on our screens? it registers as a 0 second infinite speed slide. So even if do have a slide-to-answer, the resistive screen might make this potentially un-useful.
What do you guys think?