Although I understand why people bought an iPhone and unlocked it (because it is a good phone but they want a different network), and I understand why apple want the phone locked to some specific network (because they get money for it), I really for the life of me cannot understand that when people hear there is an update for those phones, and apple warns that if you unlock your phone the update could brick it, you choose to apply that update.

So yes, apple shouldn't go round bricking peoples phones (especially not deliberately if they did), but if you modify your firmware don't go round applying updates before checking nothing bad will happen.