Whilst I do really like both my N8 and the 808 (and kinda despise my iPhone), anyone who thinks that Nokia were in a great position prior to Q4 2010 are smoking something dubious.
It has taken Nokia 2 years to get Symbian into something like a decent state (as seen on the latest 808 firmwares) - Android and Apple were improving and growing at a much greater pace.
Of course Nokias problem is down to stupendous levels of incompetence at the top end, management who don't know their posterior from their elbow, that were happily allowing teams to compete with each other, politics that would have made MS management happy beyond their wildest dreams. On that count, Nokia and MS are a match made in heaven/hell (delete as appropriate)