I used my kickstand at work to stream flash movies for 10 hours a day for a few weeks. It's not the most stable thing in the world. I'd usually pick it up to use the stylus or my fingers on the screen. But thats not a big deal, it was a nice feature you won't find on a lot of phones.
I wouldn't consider it a failure in the slightest. For me, it go the job done just fine.
mine broke but i dropped a 5kg weight on it. had to pull it out, also broke the lense cover and now its really loose so i hold it in place with sticky tape
Anyway, now I'm using the kickstandless Mugen extended back, which at least lays flat without wobbling. Oddly, having no kickstand is much less annoying than having a bad one.
I just checked out this Mugen battery and whoa... that looks like a nice improvement over the wee lil kickstand. I can completely see myself getting one vs using the stand for...well... anything.
Maybe, ok maybe use the kickstand to setup the N900 in a micromachines photo shoot... maybe.
But yes, the kickstand looked ridiculous, one of the features I would do my best to hide when showing off the phone to people.
