The part they did right was leveraging WebKit and building everything around it. They were, indeed, way ahead of the software curve. I'm not entirely sure whether they got the security story right for separating apps and the like (I'm looking forward to Open WebOS so I can take a peek). And sure, the article details how they were screwed on the hardware, extra screwed on relationships with the carriers, and were paid no favors by management.

Still, the WebKit business was indeed slick. And, now that Duarte is on the Android team, you can see his handiwork. Android 4 notably includes his app switcher / task killer.