HN is becoming another DZone, anyone to come and post your blurb blog post. Either OP just wants to discredit RepublicWireless or he should know that, if any service provider is offering heavily discounted phone, obviously they are going recoup their discount with form of either contract or forcing to sell you phone with their ROM. What's new in that?
Why not just flash it with a stock image or, even better, CM? Problem solved. Yes, the bootloader is locked, but it should still be doable via ADB.