The N8 wasn't their last hurrah with Symbian, far from it. There was a massive difference in usability between that and the later Symbian Belle releases, and they were on a pretty rapid upward trajectory. Those last versions never reached the N8 (not enough memory?) but later Symbian models like my 700 did get them.

Symbian was always likely to be clumsy, but I was surprised how well they made it work by the end. (I should say, my Nokia 700 was my first and only Symbian phone, and I came into it expecting the worst, having heard a lot from other developers.)

I'm sure the N8 lost them a lot of fans though. I had some friends who were positively angry about it.