As an Android user, I do not want the TouchWiz overlay. I want the pure, unadulterated ICS UI goodness. Why doesn't Samsung "get it"? (Don't answer that).
Your carrier decides which phones they will carry, and what software those phones will include and exclude. Samsung's job is to do whatever the carriers want. The carriers in return give Samsung support and precious shelf space.
Your carrier also wants you to blame Samsung and not them for all the things that suck about your phone. So well done.
Samsung have been some of the best in helping get custom ROMs going on their devices, and if you want stock Android, it'll always be available to you that way.
It's a fairly long procedure, but it's a nice result in the end.
Pre-ICS, I'll agree that the custom manufacturer widgets could create issues (performance, app consistency, etc.). However, starting with ICS, manufacturers will have to include the stock widgets as well and apps are likely to select them (to avoid these kinds of issues).
It also isn't hard to replace the TouchWiz launcher with an AOSP-based one (e.g. Apex, Nova, Trebuchet). After that, what is left and how important is it?
Might as well tag "So buy an Iphone" to the bottom of any Gruber post referencing android (Substitute Ipad if the post relates to tablets)
It's actually interesting in that "pure, unadulterated" Android has very heavily borrowed from Sense UI, TouchWiz, and Motoblur. Those custom skins were what really helped move the platform forward.
What I have certainly seen is manufacturers breaking baked-in functionality on Android trying to differentiate themselves. Moto managed to break both manual Exchange configuration and Facebook sync on my Droid 4, for example. It's not like those are obscure functions nobody uses.
http://androidandme.com/2012/02/news/why-androids-custom-uis...