specc,

I doubt you are ever going to find the device you are looking for in the smartphone market. Fact is, to get carrier buy-in, you are going to need to be closed to a certain extent. It is because that's what they want. That is just the reality of the market.

An important difference in this is that Android = Google while Mer != Jolla. Mer is a project that can benefit from Jolla's involvement, yet can have priorities that aren't necessarily Jolla's.

I think it is far too early to say that what Jolla is doing won't work for you because we are light on the details. Your rant on ecosystems is a case in point. What kind of ecosystem is Jolla going to have? No one really knows yet. They say that they think they have an answer to that, but we don't know what that answer is. It would be a strong assumption to think, considering the quick start that they are looking for, that they'd glom onto someone else's ecosystem while also building on top of the Maemo/Meego ecosystem, but it is an assumption based on available information.

While I don't have strong expectations, it is worth keeping an eye on, because I don't see a better option out there right now.