I'm no expert but it sure doesn't seem like a good marketing stratagy
A matter of opinion.....I think it does...for just making sure that the new OS would be optimize for the hardware..
Makes sense to me too.
Also, people don't like to say it but there are no less than 3 "flagships" available right now... Lumia 930/Icon, HTC One M8, Lumia 1520 and now that the Samsung Ativ SE has WP 8.1.1 some might consider it too.
No these are last years phones with last year's technology. While great devices they aren't considered flagship now.
Cry me a river if you want but then build me bridge to get over it... Posted from my HTC M8