Experience is always a winner over sheer features; that's just as much a proven fact as something that we see all of the time in nearly any consumer device environment.

In terms of the Garmin device, part of their branding is their user interface; for them to come with a device that doesn't have that part nailed would be something akin to putting a hole in their own tire before a drag race. I agree with your Reggie that Garmin did the right thing by focusing on the user experience first. If I were to compare that philosohpy to the IT it would be a touch unfair; there was not much of a UI principle that the IT looked to be designed to except to have a touchscreen and utilzie whatever methods early adopters were most familiar with.

I hope that OS2009 is a considerable advancement in respect to a more coherent user experience for the IT. Besides just in terms of making it more consumer friendly, it becomes developer friendly as devs won't have to guess about how to build a widget, etc. UI principles drive UX, and if the UX is bad, that probably means the UI management was also.

FYI: a good experience isn't just the applications; its the way those are tied into how the device is expected to be used. When a company is said to have a device with a good user experience, then we dont just take it to mean that it works; but we mean it in that it works as it is expected to given the constraints of the knowledge of the user, the environment of the device, and the expectations of marketing. Apple and Palm do this well by relying on a simplicity-first principle. Not really sure how Nokia/Maemo looks at it, but it would be nice to hear them speak on UI/UX in respect to the ITs a bit more.

I attended a talk given by nokia a couple of nights ago and the speaker consistently emphasized nokia wishing to bring a desktop experience to the mobile world.
I think nokia has done this better than any other company. I can't buy something the size and form factor of an IT and get close to "a desktop experience" from anywhere else.

What does a desktop experience mean? In my mind a large chunk of that is having multiple applications running and having easy access to information from those multiple applications at the same time.

Desktop experience is a misnomer that has no clear definition. If they mean the user experience of using a desktop in a mobile device, then those folks are highly misguided. People don't use mobile devices with the same expectations and perceptions as desktops - no matter what the abilities of the mobile are - and therefore the user experience has to be different.

If they mean in terms of the hardware abilities and the software accessbility, then that too is different and lies more in terms of user interface design making sure to mimic the successes that the desktop (PC) has had. That is much harder to do, though Nokia is better positioned than many computer companies in being able to do so - for now.