I think that this is important, but what about locked bootloaders and restrictive user privileges (rooting)? I truly do not understand how it appropriate to sell consumers a computing device that they don't have the right to run arbitrary software on. If I worked at [big box store] and tried to sell anyone here a desktop that was locked down harder than a high school computer lab from hell, someone would punch me...
One instance of this would be the Linksys WRT54GL wireless router which Linksys specifically sold as unlocked so users could install OpenWRT and other alternatives.
I suppose there are not enough of us to make that worthwhile? I quit buying Apple and complain bitterly in any thread about them in hopes of creating more open computing advocates.