Yea, I was not even close to being a dev but the system was weird and I couldn't be comfortable just going into terminal and using familiar tools. It was only good enough for non-power users IMHO.
There were few useful apps and it reminded me more of encountering a new strange os than Linux.
The N900 was great despite the closed drivers and never being able to progress beyond the kernel those drivers were designed for, same as the Sharp Zaurus for the same reason.
Ubuntu touch could do little and I ended up reflashing to cyanogen to get a usable if still hobbled and less than power user worthy tablet. Convergence never happened and it is all down to lack of drivers for our hardware, otherwise we would all be using x11 and be able to install any ARM compiled distro.
Unlike laptops where hacking on linux is fun and easy with decent driver support there is no longer any good option for tablet and phone users beyond some sketchy Cherry Trail AMD64 stuff, the N900 might have had blob drivers but it used ALSA and X11 so was pretty easy to compile for despite the ultimately life shortening bin blob drivers and corporate problems killing a promising future.