Look the claim that android is open source and customizable is true to some extenct. As crappy as WM is it truly can do anything. Yes android allows you to rearrange the widgets and add a few calender/apps on the home screen, thats it. With my WM I could easily download a .cab to change the clock/touchflo or any other visual thing with ease. It seems to truly take advantage of customizing your phone you have to be a good developer. I have asked numerous times and no one seems to know how, and because their is no program or person who can answer it seems like android isn't as customizable as everyone said. I hate the black notification bar on the hero, the white one is much more visually appealing and makes the screen look more crisp v. the black one, does anyone know how to do that.
All the UI elements are stored as .PNG files inside various .APKs, iirc usually in a /resources sub-folder. APKs can be opened with a ZIP manager and the files extracted, edited and replaced. The snag is that you need to root the handset to access most of these as they reside in /system. So I agree with you, right now the visual side of customising Android is lacking. Several replacement Home apps exist that allow themes to be applied to alter the UI appearance, but afaik nothing (yet) exists to allow easy modifying of the individual UI elements.
