Control of your devices falls under the carrier, not Google. Blame the carrier if you can't re-flash your phone to your heart's content. You certainly can mod

Control of your devices falls under the carrier, not Google. Blame the carrier if you can't re-flash your phone to your heart's content. You certainly can modify the base OS, with the exception of a handful of binaries. If the binaries in question (Gmail, YouTube, the market) bother you that much, there is nothing to stop you from writing your own versions.