Exactly. The must be a good 50 flashlight apps but I cant find a single one that doesnt run ads or need dubious privileges. I even started with highest price ones first and they still want too much info. (If you know of one please let me know). But very common to want my phone book, ability to place calls, access the GPS location, modify SD card contents, and so on.
Sometimes its explainable - I install GPS Status paid version, and when it asked for full network access I emailed the dev, and he answered quickly saying he got lazy and loads all the help screens from the web. So OK, yeah maybe.
The average user I hear from all complain about poor performance, unstable operation, and high data charges, and dont understand that its because they installed 100 free crapware apps.