I understand, and agree with your overall point, and trust me when I say I'm not a Google fanboy or Apple-hater. But I honestly can't imagine any smartphone be

I understand, and agree with your overall point, and trust me when I say I'm not a Google fanboy or Apple-hater. But I honestly can't imagine any smartphone being released in the future without a proper touchscreen. It's become such an integral part of the smartphone experience, and as you said, completely changes the way a user can interact with a device or an application. The rest of the divergence in hardware is not a total gamechanger though: the screen resolution/DPI, screen orientation, etc. Those aren't gamechangers like a touchscreen is, and touchscreens are here to stay anyways. If devices like the G1 and iPhone can sell with a great multitouch screen for $100, then there's no point in selling a smartphone without one, and a consumer would be stupid (IMO) to pay for one without it. So if we take the touchscreen as a done-deal, then everything else divergent is a non-issue. Android makes it a piece of cake to optimize for them, without having to redesign or rewrite your entire application. And at that point, the variety of hardware is your friend, helping to increase your potential market. That's all I was trying to get at.