That's not right....
The L800 was largely contracted out, it's well known that the N9 was far more "in house" than the L800*, that slowly changed with the 900, & is probably very different with the 920 now.
You have variations in housing quality (which includes colouring/coating among other things), some white housings will look better than others, it's the nature of mass production.
It MAY be possible that "whiter" housings & better glass fronts are being reserved for the L800's etc, but generally production doesn't work like that, too inefficient...
More likely is that because we've had much greater no's of them being produced for much longer now, the probability of having better quality builds** in circulation has become higher.

*This was done because Nokia didn't have the capacity for qualcomm related tech at the time, so in order to get to market quicker, most of the work was contracted out, because of the specialised (stop-gap) design of the L800, that wouldn't have changed since.
**at least in SOME aspects.....

the original cyan housing my N9 came with was horrible. Ill fitting with a large 1mm gap between the lower part of the screen and the housing. The physical buttons rattled and the whole thing creaked and groaned every time i used it. I swapped the housing out for a white one I bought on ebay for about £40 and it fits like a glove. The white is as brilliant as any lumia ive seen and is a joy to hold.

my Lumia 800 (black, direct from Nokia) has an awful screen that appears to have a seam running right down the middle of it. The light reflects in a horrible way and i was so concerned that i took it to a care point as i thought it might be a weakness that would later cause the screen to crack. The guy said it was fine, so i live with it.

in short, build quality varies so much i dont believe you can put it down to something as simple as "lumias are built better than N9 or vice versa".

Anyone else feels like I do?

I have a white N9 keeping it in the box. It was bought from a Finnish shop.
I am "afraid" to use it, don't want to make the slightest scratch or bump on it.

It is so damn beautiful. I am taking out of the box just to charge and discharge the battery.

I am seeing myself holding on it for years to come. I am guessing that it will be a rare collector's item in the future.

**Of course I'm using my 16gb black N9 as my daily phone so I don't miss it.

Maybe if I had another white N9 I would do the same. But since I only have one I will enjoy it fully in its creamy white goodness.

Ooohh, nice! Tell me how...

I tried to change the housing on my n9, but one of the screws was so tight that I destroyed the screw head. it's not off, but I can't use any tools in it. I tried a small screwdriver and a bigger torx, but no success.

how do I rescue a worn out screwhead?

thanks!