so Jobs very plainly is not at all interested in maintaining free and open standards on the web.
So HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are not free and open standards? Because that's all I see Jobs pushing. (ignoring the fact that both H264 and Flash video are not ideal nor free video solutions)
Cocoa and the App Store have nothing to do with developing web apps, and there are no Apple restrictions on web content for iPhone OS. If I want a porn HTML5 app with offline storage and a boob home screen icon, I can do it very simply. No SDK needed, no need for Apple's approval.
That said, I would like to have the option for Flash. I would keep it turned off unless needed, the same way I do on my laptop, but I agree that it should be my choice. However, most users aren't knowledgable enough to know that it should be left off unless needed, and will blame the resulting slowdowns and browser crashes on Apple and not Flash, which is what has been happening on OS X for some time now.