Because that's what I was using (and leaving) at the time. The Galaxy S III was the leading contender, in fact, but my negative experiences with Android 1.6 and 2.1 (from bad to worse) factored against it. I later supported an S3 for a few months that was buggy and unreliable, so I was happy I didn't get it instead.

I was trying to put my purchase in context. At that time, I had been locked in a 2 year contract that only got me as far as Android 2.1, which was already obsolete by the time the carrier (AT&T) finally allowed me to update from 1.6. So my options were Android 4.x (fool me twice?), iOS 6 (hated the UI) or Windows Phone (loved the UI and updates weren't being significantly delayed or blocked).

And your analogy is apt. Imagine walking into a computer store today and they're selling PCs with Windows 98 preinstalled with the promise you can upgrade to Vista as "soon" as the manufacturer allows it (currently delayed until they rewrite some incompatible adware). That's what the US smartphone market feels like (or did then), especially with Android.