It's not incredibly difficult, it just involves rooting your phone and reflashing to one of the custom ROMs. Oh, and then reinstalling all your apps that aren't able to be included in the ROM (although some of the newer Cyanogen updates do this for you).

It is more effort than I've been willing to do, however; which is why my Android phone is still stuck at 1.6.

I was just trying to draw attention to the fact that folks on here who are talking about how much better it is on the Android side of the fence aren't necessarily correct. Android has it's own bureaucratic nonsense (like coordinating updates between Google, the handset manufacturer, and the carrier).