I read that as more of a request for the developers to create a ROM with these features rather than hoping for a community provided ROM, but I could easily be wrong.
I would like to second the notion, regardless. There is a movement away from Google Services Framework. Google is known to collect and aggregate data from multiple sources any way they can, and there's no guarantee that data isn't being used nefariously. We know the data is being used -- whether directly or indirectly -- for profits by Google and probably Google partners, and we increasingly distrust Google services in their retention of said data and the integration of that data into other services.
We know it is possible to have the same feature set in today's phones without resorting to Google services. We see it done every day in the sense of Android Open Source Project (AOSP) ROMs as commonly found in generic forums like XDA-Developers, Android Central, and the like. Of course, these often require root, which we know is never officially supported (at least not here), but many of us don't need root to have the features we want... we just need the developers to provide it, even if it means manually flashing it to our phones.
I would support having a non-Google ROM option, as long as we don't lose features of the *hardware*. Obviously, some "features" are provided by Google (contacts sync, calendar sync, etc.) but these are features that could be obtained in other ways. What I refer to are features like the FM broadcast band receiver, WiFi, Bluetooth, the two-way radio, camera, to name a few. ** I would even be willing to waive my rights to warranty repair and resort to community support ** if it meant an AOSP ROM with full hardware functionality.
.........but that's just me.
All that said, this *IS* the first phone I've owned that I haven't *HAD* to root to get what I wanted out of it. Although, there are things I *WANT* out of it that I feel only rooting will allow, unless the developers of the stock ROM are willing to entertain several feature requests that we've already posted.
