I agree with everything you've said - with a small addition, thumb applications are not "future" for N900 software, they're absolutely the present. Every self-respecting developer offers thumb version where applicable, and most of even barely knowledgeable devs and users are utilizing thumb on their devices.

Some people took personal effort to make their programs easily available thumb-compiled - for example, gdizzz host personal repo with thumb versions of all programs he is maintaining, so no more download-link hunting... In this case.

Sadly, those thing works only if individuals do it on their own - none of the (supposedly?) governing bodies took steps (actively seeking volunteers, etc) to update repository system. They're busy "elsewhere" <put a link to any random mail from Maemo's mailing list, where council and board is throwing apesh|t at each other> ...

/Estel