Why MUST they be widgets? You can easily have email and/or calendar as one of the 4 shortcuts in the shortcut bar. The widgets can always be manually switched on the fly. I can easily see an ebb and flow in use of the social widgets for example.
If anything, teh shortcut bar seems very easily expendible by hitting the home key going into applications. Turns from one instant click from home screen to 3 clicks (home key -> applications -> app).
Another method that could be cool would be to tie different home screens to profiles. So your general profile has widgets x,y,z while your meeting profile has different widgets.
In general, though, I'm finding your... entitlement attitude... to be a bit intruiging. You disagree with the 5-widget limitation... yet are arbitrarily assigning certain widgets as invaluable in your own limited context, apparently refusing to realize that Nokia isn't custom making a phone for just you. Maybe you should go through the SDK and see the examples that show 5 completely new widgets on there?
This is all software... provided the memory and resource issues are as trivial to bypass as you seem to think they should be, there should be easy software adjustments to multiple home pages. Or your preconception is incorrect and there won't be. In the meantime, N97 owners will still have 5 more widgets than everyone else... Or those can always stay with a device with active standby... and it's own limitations. This is indeed the most hopeful part: that software can expand. This is surely just the beginning, though. Maybe you should conclude this device isn't going to please you and wait for a future device, maybe?
Not sure if you're just looking for "me too" or if you're playing devil's advocate... or just generally griping?
The point is that not everyone will have the same essential unchangable/unremovable widgets you do. Surely you can conceive that some people will use 5 entirely different widgets that you?
lol, I'm sure they were no more arbitrary or intuitive than you in going to the side than down.
How many other mid-end phones do you see with the hardware feature set and capabilities. Start with 32GB of flash, 3.5" touch screens, Qwerty keyboards, 5mp cameras and MicroSD slots. With any widgets. Go. :befuddled
Or those who otherwise found N95 and N96 lacking... chiefly in comparitively non-tiny touch screens and qwerty keyboards and usually a trade off between built in and removable storage. N96 finally solved the last problem... at huge price and not solving any of the others.