People chose the Lumia 900 because of the design, not because of the specs and the OS (it used the same hardware and OS version as others 6 months before it, so why weren't they so interested in those?). They also chose the Galaxy S3 because of its (mostly) top notch hardware, not because of its "Nature UX" skin. People also tend to buy the iPhone because of how good it looks.
In fact I think there are 3 main reasons why people buy phones in general, and I'm thinking the mass-market here, not the "smartphone savvy" people, who fight over versions of the OS and new features:
1) price (most people have a price range in mind when they buy a phone)
2) design (most people want to either impress their friends or feel good themselves about using it everyday)
I doubt how the software looks is even in the top 5 priorities for most people. Branding is probably a top 5 one, too. When people think of a company that makes "crappy" phones, they generally don't think about how the software looks or works, but about the hardware, and they tend to also buy on brand, just like with many other types of products because branding offers them a level of "trust" that the device will be "good", and won't break a day after purchase.
So I think there's more to it than your simplified view of the market. Also with your logic, then the Windows Phone OS is dead on arrival because it both forces them to use the exact same looking OS, and even worse, it forces them to use the exact same hardware (pretty much).
However, I do know of three non-technical people who have said they're never getting "an android" again because their [Froyo/Gingerbread] experience was so bad. But as they're on 24 month contracts they have had (and still have) a lot of time for this dislike to grow. I have recommended Windows Phone to the one whose contract is almost up.
Why should I go out of my way to fix a broken product? The appropriate response to a phone running broken software is ignore it and buy one built by someone competent. Buying a broken phone only encourages the manufacturer to make more, regardless of what you do with it after they have their $400.
It is not broken. It is old, and not being updated.
If they had bought a windows phone those 2 years ago, they would be saying the same thing about their windows phone.
But i agree that most android vendors suck at updates and should be avoided. But you should avoid their phones just as much when they are running windows.
Really, only Apple is doing this right: you get the full ecosystem experience for at least two years.
Those skinned android are often already six months behind and wont be updated.
But to compare a three year old android phone with a fresh new windows phone is unfair and illogial.
In fact I think there are 3 main reasons why people buy phones in general, and I'm thinking the mass-market here, not the "smartphone savvy" people, who fight over versions of the OS and new features:
1) price (most people have a price range in mind when they buy a phone)
2) design (most people want to either impress their friends or feel good themselves about using it everyday)
3) hardware quality (reliability, feel, display, camera, etc)
I doubt how the software looks is even in the top 5 priorities for most people. Branding is probably a top 5 one, too. When people think of a company that makes "crappy" phones, they generally don't think about how the software looks or works, but about the hardware, and they tend to also buy on brand, just like with many other types of products because branding offers them a level of "trust" that the device will be "good", and won't break a day after purchase.
So I think there's more to it than your simplified view of the market. Also with your logic, then the Windows Phone OS is dead on arrival because it both forces them to use the exact same looking OS, and even worse, it forces them to use the exact same hardware (pretty much).