So wait... you did your research but still bought a phone that doesn't have the market installed? I don't think you can blame Google for that. And if developers only want to make their apps available through the market, that's their prerogative. Next you'll blame Valve for devs only releasing stuff on Steam...

You could actually do some research and buy one that has been rooted. Cyanogenmod supports something like six different phones. Android *is* open compared to most other smartphone platforms. I have a G1 that's running CM5 (Android 2.1) built from the open source code Google put out. I don't see that ever happening on Apple phone hardware? Even before I rooted my phone, I could install non-market apps easily. It's not Android that's closed. Blame the hardware manufacturers and networks like AT&T (who disabled non-market app install on their Android phones).

I sea what you did there...

Android will support it from "Gingerbread". http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/#webm_video_file_format