One reason would be that the cost of their warranty is based around the user having only restricted access, leading to less claims. Once you brick your phone w

One reason would be that the cost of their warranty is based around the user having only restricted access, leading to less claims. Once you brick your phone with a broken bootloader/firmware update, that should really be your problem, not theirs (and if the changes to their warranty specify that, them I'm fine with it) Of course, I'd hope that there's some recourse for updating regardless of bootloader condition (JTAG, etc), but I can't imagine they're required to provide that. The fact that they're willing to officially support this is a pretty good step when everyone seems to be going the other way into more and more lockdown.