I would just like to emphasize that this is not a cop-out. Not only does my top-of-the-line (when I bought it) iPhone 3GS with iOS 5 feel much more sluggish tha

I would just like to emphasize that this is not a cop-out. Not only does my top-of-the-line (when I bought it) iPhone 3GS with iOS 5 feel much more sluggish than my girlfriend's very low-end Android phone, but apps — even Apple apps — crash all the friggin' time due to memory exhaustion. Assuming the experience upgrading an old Android to ICS would be similar, I'd say Google is simply doing better QA than Apple.