Only time will tell if these decisions make any sense at all. We don't have much public information to work with about yahoo.
I think this is a very insightful analysis. I think there are people that like the "yahoo" way of presenting applications. It may look old fashion to others, but there is a market. If it was not the case, yahoo would already be dead. If yahoo changes its mind to do the same as others, they would lose their soul and die. We have similar experience with RIM that left professional phones with keyboard to become an Apple follower. RIM is (almost) dead.
They still had a sizable lead in enterprise but even there they didn't fix some of their fundamental usability issues in a timely fashion, so a lot of enterprise customers started shifting towards Android and iOS.
Blackberry's problem is that it too them far too long to respond to a sea change in their market. Had their first true flagship touchscreen phone come in 2009 instead of 2013 they might still be a big player.
I am one that would own a RIM phone, IF, IF, and only IF they had made it easy to code applications for it like Apple and Google did for their phones.
RIM noticed now and BB10 is seemly really interesting, but now they are too late, there are no apps on their phone.
And I say that, because I ABSOLUTELY HATE touchscreen, it NEVER do what I want, I own a Xperia Play, and many times I prefer to use the Playstation controls to control the phone, the touchscreen is unstable, finnicky, don't work when it is raining, or when my hand is wet, or sweaty, and so on...
Most BB users I know absolutely loved the keyboard, and thought it worked much better than a touchscreen. It was also considered by many business users to be the only phone useable for business use because you could actually type quickly on it.
Those users also abandoned the phone, but I don't know if it was because of the touchscreen.
I think the reason they failed was "app store." Also they had a really crappy interface compared to iPhone and Android.
I can't imagine that a BBRY Q10 running BB 10.2.1 would not have more appeal than the android keyboard/touchscreen that you had.
BRRY(the company) is NOT dead.
They are still very much alive and still making and selling smartphones and other products/services.
IMO, they are doing a much better job of making them(smartphones), then they are of selling them, and if they continue on that trajectory they could well end up ... dead ... but
FWIW - Let's not put the body in the cooler until were sure that its actually not breathing.