I completely agree with this post. It seems Nokia have released a wonderful phone, but not taken the time and care to ensure it's all packaged up in the way everyone (else) has come to expect during the last few years.
Whilst I don't think the iPhone is any better than the N97, I do feel that Apple have got it right in the *look and feel* of the phone's software. Things just look nicer, and that will, unfortunately, get the attention of people - reviewers who aren't phone reviewers as such but get to play with a couple of devices and wow the iPhone just works, where as the N97... well it does work, but only after you've fumbled around through lots of weird menus setting it up first.
Things like applications not having something pre-defined on them, where as the iPhone does. Things like icons being blank folders, or being low resolution and blocky, or as you've said the two games that seem to become available after you've been using the phone for a while, not going in to the Games folder on the main screen but instead in to Applications - it's just daft, almost as if they didn't really try it from a users perspective before releasing.
The empty MfE (Mail for Exchange?) folder is another odd one. Also putting the Welcome application inside the Applications folder and not at the top left icon seems a bit daft. And why have a "Download!" app when that's been replaced by Ovi Store? and why have the N97 as the first device to have Ovi pre-loaded, just to use it on the day of launch of the phone in the UK and for it to have to download Ovi - in effect it was just a shortcut to the page to download the file, so it wasn't really pre-installed at all was it?
Other things that make me wonder quite how much the N97 had before release, include things like entering your login details in to the facebook app where it doesn't show if you're in caps lock or have the blue function key pressed for numbers or anything - it makes it VERY hard to enter a password (and hard enough to enter your email address for the username). This is the same on the web browser too, try entering text in to a text box such as the status update on m.facebook.com - it uses that tiny box (as my old N80 did) and not a proper text entry screen, which again means no notification of caps lock, shift, function key usage.
Also what's with the "to" (and other message headers) being white text on a light grey button in the message editing tool for email/mms/sms? You can hardly read it - did no one at Nokia notice that?! It absoloutely sums up the lack of care that sadly seems to have gone in to the software side of the N97, and that's not at all what I associate Nokia with.
All things I noticed within an hour or so of usage (after I'd set up the connection points...) and all things people will notice within their first hour and think the phone is rubbish as it "doesn't work" compared with how more user-friendly phones may do. Give it longer and there's no doubt about it in my mind that the N97 is fantastic, but the trouble is a lot of people simply won't give it longer - they'll just walk away. It has the wow factor for the build quality, the look of the hardware, the keyboard and camera and the raw functionality it offers, but there's something really lacking when it comes to the presentation and overall thought of "a real person using the device".
I'm sure all this could be "fixed" with nothing more than a firmware upgrade (effectively some new icons and new skins, and optionally moving stuff about so it's in more logical locations), but really all the polish and style should have been there on launch day - that way it'd have turned heads and really made people sit up and take notice. However instead Nokia have lost out on that, and by the time they get round to making it look good as well as work well, everyone who has already seen the N97 and dismissed it will have moved on to something else. Massive missed opportunity by Nokia - but not the first time.