Hmm, the freedom to hack the phone without jumping through hoops was, for me, one of the major attractions of Android over the iPhone. An effective vendor OS lock-in makes Android a lot less appealing to me, especially when the usability of the vendor OS is markedly worse than iPhone OS.

Indeed, it is disappointing that carriers are doing this. I suppose Google has the power to stop them if it wishes, but that might require a rewriting of the Android license agreement. I don't know, I'm not an expert on this stuff.

I currently have four Android phones, but I only really use my N1 since Sense is basically unusable compared to standard Android in my opinion. If only the UI were configurable, I might use all four.

Google could rewrite the android license agreement, but that would make the platform less appealing. HTC would stay in the game but it's questionable whether the slackers like Sony Ericsson would. The awful truth about Android is that while Apple and Google know software, none of the people Google is partnering with, handset makers or telecoms, do. None of them understand what it takes to make high-quality, defect free software, or what 3rd party developers need from a platform, or what end-users expect from software. I can tell you that having sold to and consulted for them, and having family members who've worked for them, the telecoms are particularly clueless about these things. Hence we have them selling new smartphone with Android 1.5, in spite of the damage this does to the android development world.