It's a shame it was a Verizon exclusive. It had such great specs. It was basically a 1520 in a smaller factor, which not everyone wants a phablet. It's like MS really wants to limit WP8 as much as possible.
Unfortunately, Nokia (the jury's out on Microsoft Mobile) was still playing by the old rules of the cellphone world with the Icon... that is, making itself a slave to the carriers in return for marketing dollars that weren't going to make much difference in the end.
Apple, HTC, LG and Samsung all learned a valuable lesson a long time ago: never, ever accept carrier exclusives for your most important devices. Availability trumps free ad dollars every time. Even Apple eventually regretted its AT&T deal, since iPhone availability on Verizon before late 2009 would've probably killed the Motorola Droid (and thus the rise of Android in the US) before it ever got off the ground.
I'm really, really hoping that Microsoft puts its foot down for future Lumias in the US. Remind the networks that exclusives rarely help, and that the last thing they want is a total Android monopoly that stifles choice and innovation.
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