I was wondering. Why not build on work that has been done using chroot environment to put linux on top of (or coexist with) android. For example

http://linuxonandroid.org/

or maybe better (not sure...)

http://whiteboard.ping.se/Android/Debian

Some advantages are that there is little or no performance sacrifice. You can still use android apps, make calls use all social media apps that folks like on android and so forth while simultaneously having, say, debian linux or your favorite distro at your fingertips. Also, you will be able to take advantage of more of the latest hardware out there. Seems like if 5 to 10 people from maemo put effort into this great strides could be made in the short term. Then, maybe long term, try Mer-based OS or some approach that is more aesthetically pleasing from the ground up.