Samsung may have made some serious mistakes with regards to the Galaxy S upgradability. But it doesn't mean they will keep being that way. Asian companies like Samsung are relentless and they attack their issues with a vengeance. Whatever the problems with the Galaxy S with regards to upgrading, a new model represents another way to correct their mistakes.
The saying, "Tomorrow is another day" describes this well.
Should note that HTC had a serious problem in their GSM HTC Hero design that made it difficult to upgrade until nearly a year. What they learned from that, are applied to the next generation of phones that made them easier and faster to upgrade.
The same goes to one of the most criticized of Android vendors, Sony Ericsson. Seems like they learned their lessons very clearly with the X10. They are releasing their new generation of Androids all with Android 2.3. Like HTC, Samsung and Motorola, the UI layer is modularized and widgetized, much more decoupled from the OS, making upgrades easier.
The one thing Samsung and Sony Ericsson isn't going to relent though, is that major upgrades are going to be performed using their PC sync software. HTC and Motorola likes off the air updates. Another difference is that when an update is in effect, HTC and Motorola ships new batches of the model from then on with the update already applied, whereas Samsung and Sony Ericsson will only ship later models with upgraded bugfixed ROMs, but never an OS version jump. You can see this with the later batches of the Galaxy S, the ROM labels are changed and they are less susceptible to the lag issues of the earlier batches.
I had issues upgrading my own Galaxy S i9000. Kies identifed my ROM as one having no update. Its stock. I took it to a Samsung service center (this is all in Asia). They noted my ROM number and told me its eligible for a free upgrade. They asked if there is anything worth keeping in the phone. I already backed up everything before with Kies.
Two hours later after shopping i came back to the service center and my phone is ready with its new Froyo update. Really nice and fast, and Touchwiz got a number of tricks too.
Thought the story ended there. End of January, the web Android Market came and I went online to check my Google account on the Market. Unlike my other phones, the activation date of the Froyo Galaxy S was exactly on the date I got it back from the dealer after the update, not on the day I bought it which is reflected on the other phones. Even when the other phones got Froyo updates, the activation date is always on the original date when I first bought and activated the phone.
I can only conclude that the Galaxy S with Froyo I got was actually a new phone, and not the original one I bought. In any case, the phone is is no longer in my hands, as I passed it to my daughter to whom I gave my Galaxy Tab too. She kind of wanted it after her experience with the Tab.
