So, it's just incompetence and lousy training of sales people? Sorry, I would have bought this 3 months ago but given that every company in the world has rolled out these updates and that Verizon has seen fit to kill what is arguably the best Windows Phone on the planet in the Icon, there is more going on here than the bull**** "rigorous testing" that Verizon CSRs keep spewing.
You're looking for things that simply aren't there.
I love windows phone. I use it. I sit next to another windows phone user and we consider it almost a secret club. We like grumbling about how we didn't get at the Microsoft Band before they all sold out. However, at least in the eyes of the public (and a lot of the employees unfortunately) there is still the stereotype that there are "no apps", even among those who like it. This isn't something coming from the higher ups. If anything, the higher ups keep trying to squash this silly belief internally through trainings and meetings. There's also a diagnostic tool that's in the works that will allow us to get stats such as signal strength (in dbm), memory usage, crashing apps, etc. We already have the tool for Android and there's a windows phone version in the works.
It's also worth considering that there are simply a lot more android phones out there.
And I was serious that a lot of android phones are getting the same testing treatment right now. They're being extremely cautious after a couple software versions on some androids went sour. A few of them actually have manufacturer replacement programs because the bad software release made them unusable in certain situations. Can you imagine how much money this costs both Verizon *and* the manufacturers?
The fact is, people are looking for someone to blame. They're mad, they're frustrated, they want to know whose head to demand. And it's hard to do that when its nobody's fault.