LOL YEAH. Agreed. I have no clue why they think fancy skins that annoy people, aren't fully functional, and restrict updates severely are preferred. I'd argue that its a reason to AVOID a manufacturer...and that is exactly of the main, and the initial, appeals of the Nexus Phones
The enthusiast community is a small part of the overall market. The average user is turned off by plain Android, and they don't want to go fill in the "missing" functionality by downloading apps. They like things like Touchwiz and Sense, because they come with a set of stock widgets/apps that you'd expect a phone to have. I mean, vanilla android doesn't even have a memo/notes app, does it? That's fine by me, I'm using Evernote, but what if I'm just getting started? I'm going to bitch that I bought a phone that doesn't do anything.