I just can't see myself seriously considering buying an Android phone sold by, and supported by, a carrier (or, really, even a third-party manufacturer). I don't want to buy a phone with an awful, slow, gaudy interface tacked on, I don't want a phone that ships with a bunch of sponsored crap, and I don't want to discover that my carrier has no intention of providing timely software updates (if they plan on providing software updates at all).

All of this "openness" is worthless when the carriers are the bottleneck. The only serious choice for someone who knows better (at least in my opinion) is the Nexus One, which Google only sells to developers and only ships from the US. Google talks the talk about how great a job their partners are doing, but I can't imagine the Android team is happy with the current situation.

Say what you will about Apple, but my iPhone 3G is still officially supported and will be until next June. Good luck getting 3 years of updates from a carrier.