I am a mere user of a N900 and thus Maemo. I like to play around and value that freedom higher than perfection. in many respects IOs is more finished, polished etc. but also rather limited (my favorite on the N900 is Easy Debian and therefore I love the resistive touch screen and the stylus because a system following the desktop paradigm otherwise would be unusable). From such a point of view, it is not necessarily a question of either/or (unless you are single-track minded) but there could be a parallel approach.

However, I easily can see that Meamo - and apparently Meego in its present state - might suite me but is not form my brother (literally. For good reason he likes his IPhone).

That is why I make this statement: there might be the simple recognition, that Meego (unless it is really polished) would be for a different clientele than WP7 (or IOs or Android) is aiming for.

I am one of those who are a bit frustrated because my favorite path is somehow deemed to be less supported now. However, little hope remains that is not fully abandoned yet. Should it once turn out that a third system for the bigger market will not catch on, a return to the alternative path (Plan B) appears to be still possible although I see the risk that this path is diminishing due to lack of care. We will see.