I think some people brick their devices themselves. The update takes time, and doesn't show progress immediately. When the N900 is doing the update, the user freaks and disconnects the battery or the USB cable, bricking the device.

I'm just saying this because I do not have none of the failures or problems described here or elsewhere. And I have used the device a lot, I have used extras-testing and installed and uninstalled almost every available software. At first I tried the OTA update, but my device couldn't do it (prob. incompatible packages left somewhere), so I backed up on the device (to microsdhc) and flashed it (I tried to manually update via apt-get, no go). After the succesful (vista32) flash with NSU I restored the backup which worked flawlessly, re-installed all my software automatically via wifi, and even returned my background images as they were.

So what I'm saying is that not everybody has problems with the device. And from experience I can say that user interference is not so uncommon. I don't want to blame the users for their problems, but Nokia should really have more emphasis on the 'somewhat experimental device' side of the N900.