WebOS was great. The whole idea of "cards" iOS and Android blatantly stole from it. But even the TouchPad felt underpowered by the time it came out. It was, as one reviewer at the time put it, "An iPad 1 competitor in an iPad 2 world."
Well, you can say they stole it but Matias Duarte worked on both -- he was a VP for UX and design on WebOS and is now Google's VP of design. (And I don't think he's the only one from Palm to come over to Google, either) Soon after he joined is when Material Design made an appearance.
I loved my Pre, but I didn't keep it, like you said the hardware wasn't very good. Also at release, while the software was good and showed a lot or promise, it did feel a little beta quality, and that would have been easier to overlook on better hardware. In the end I ended up returning the phone right at the end of my 30 day window and got my first Android phone the Samsung moment. The software was a step down, but at least the hardware was decent and the keyboard wasn't a nightmare to type on. I guess I was used to that paradigm since the phone I had immediately previous was a Nokia E71 and I had blackberrys before that.
WebOS was very well designed, and IMHO only suffered due to underpowered hardware.
I’ve always wanted to do something with it’s leftovers.