Well, BB just got 200.000 American pre-orders. That's a lot for BB. So yes, there is a market for something new and different.
I'd love to use the Jolla phone in the States as well.

Tinkerers is a wrong statement. I'm not a tinkerer in any technical kind of way and I don't know the inner workings of a computer all that well (I know a bit of Linux because I use it since 2008, but I'm still kind of a noob after all these years lol). But still I manage to use the Jolla phone on a daily basis. So no, you don't need be tech-savvy to use the Jolla phone.

Also: don't put things out of context. The "retooling isn't necessary" statement wasn't about the current Jolla phone but about the Jolla phone 2 which I mentioned in the sentence thereafter.