What I'm wondering is if you can still get an unlocked phone for $199 if you sign up for the plan. It would be more attractive to know that you can still walk away from the plan with a phone you can use elsewhere.
Hell, I bought a G1 and wanted to unlock it to sell to some guy and all I had to do was get a family friend with a T-Mobile to call up and ask for the unlock code for a phone with ID blah-blah-blah. They handed it right over. T-Mobile is VERY reasonable about this kind of stuff.
I walked right in one of the stores and asked for my MSL for my phone. They looked at me and said "If you use it, we're not responsible for what happens. That could mean bricking". After I agreed, he wrote it down.
2 hours later, at a Windows programming machine, I loaded up QPST and changed the tethered NAI so now my machines can get online easily (without using tethering programs as a shim).