I think it was up to par, as advertised. It's done everything it said it could do on the box and in the manual when I got it. (In fact, it can do more now, which is quite nice.) There were a few minor bugs, but most of them have been fixed, and none were show stoppers.

I still have a computer in my pocket, and Flash in my browser. How exactly is it failing at both? They never promised it would dynamically keep up with the computer market as devices got faster... nothing does. And they never promised it would have eternal software updates either, though they've had 4 in under 8 months, which I think is outstanding. Again though, it's still doing what it said it would...

The few we get from home devs? There are lots of apps out there, tons. Considering most Java/J2ME apps also work now (thanks to two of those "few home dev apps") the base is pretty large. Larger than most older phones that had native J2ME support.

That's one upside of having a pessimistic view of things. If things do improve or get better, even slightly, it's a pleasant surprise. If not, then you were right to be pessimistic. Having an optimistic view is great in the beginning, but you can really only go down-hill from there.

I think most of the problem here is that people had high expectations based on random tech-blog chatter. The device is not going to float out of your pocket and become a sentient companion, handling all your social and networking needs. It does what it does, and it's still doing it pretty well. If you expect miracles out of anything, you're going to be sorely disappointed most of your life.