The point of the software isn't to be good. It's to lock people into the Samsung ecosystem and stave off becoming a commodity hardware producer - the real threa

The point of the software isn't to be good. It's to lock people into the Samsung ecosystem and stave off becoming a commodity hardware producer - the real threat proposed by Android. For 6 years Samsung has been desperately trying to make Touchwiz sufficiently different from stock to make it hard for people to switch to any other kind of android. It seems their focus was on switching costs, rather than making a better product, as most of these differences made touchwiz inferior. It has worked relatively well; many consumers have Samsung brand recognition. However, every release of Android brings a bit more uniformity.