True though that may be, I think some people only want to buy the flagships because they can be assured of a certain level of quality (no shovelware, to start w

True though that may be, I think some people only want to buy the flagships because they can be assured of a certain level of quality (no shovelware, to start with) without having to go through hoops installing/uninstalling this or that, or potentially void the warranty with custom ROMs. For those people, the alternative Android offerings just aren't on the radar.