Again, starting from elements of Maemo is a surefire way to ship a ghastly user experience. The N800 that I still own had the most hostile UI of any device I ever bought with my own money. The reason it flopped was because it is really bad, not a great conspiracy.

Look at the TODOs for Maemo Leste, which you just referenced. "Phone calls should work, with audio, when alsamixer is set up properly". That is F-tier user experience. OpenMoko-level garbage.