Since I was the one that started the whole mess with Active Standby vs "widget" homescreen, I thought I would pick up on this point.
To answer your question ? Yes.
When you realize that certain "core" widgets have less functionality than their counterparts on Active Standby, yes 5 widgets become an issue for me.
Right now because the e-mail widget for each inbox is so big, I would have to use two widgets for two inboxes (and yes, I understand that some people would only have one inbox). That leaves another widget for my calendar items. That alone is three. If I add a basic shortcut widget (which due to the size of the icons gives me two less shortcuts than I have on my E71), that makes four.
That leaves one widget empty. If I want weather, that makes five. So I have no room for anything beyond e-mail(2)/calendar/shortcut/weather.
I don't think I'm out of line when I assume that most people using a smartphone would have e-mail, meetings/to-dos/calendar, weather, and some sort of quicklaunch icon. If they only have one inbox to monitor, that means they have space for one more widget, which can be facebook, AP news, Bloomberg, myspace, whatever.
The whole notion behind this widget notion was to have dynamic content at a quick glance. But because of the size or lack of multiple widget screens, it seems if you want your e-mail/calendar/shortcuts, then you should forget about things like facebook/news/stocks/twitter/whatever because at most, you'll only have room for one of those.
