I think we all feel that both because we appreciate all of his contributions to the community and just because he is a great guy.
With the N900 and Neo900 being curated things of the past I am not terribly suprised he is not still involved as are many of the old TMO crew. Whait is nice is that we have Leste to move forward as a community with our favorite UI but for new and diverse hardware, I feel like it also will serve as a club ID for old Maemo users.