Most of these phones could be weeded out by simple criteria (like no updates to recent Android versions). Unfortunately it is difficult to get that information among all the noise.
You also can't predict whether the phones you're considering will get updated to newer versions of Android. I got burned by this when Froyo came out three months after I got a phone, and the manufacturer would not update it.
Nearly every phone gets updated to newer Androids, just often not by the manufacturer. http://www.xda-developers.com/ is your friend.