A pure Linux phone could obviously benefit from being as polished and streamlined as its iOS and Android counterparts.

But thats not its main mission. Thats not what it's selling.

Total user control, like on real desktop Linux, for those who can wield it, because thats literally what youre getting.

For now this space is for a very specific audience. Maybe in time (like Ubuntu did for desktop Linux on PCs) there will come a distro which is usable enough OOB to have the same effect on mobile.

We mobile Linux users will still be a minority though, and we probably wont mind. Just like we dont mind being minority desktop users either.