It does feel like we're banging our heads against a brick wall. I honestly believe that Microsoft believe that the way the OS looks, the way it works, the way it interacts with the user and the way it inter-operates with third-party apps, it will shine above the other major players so much so that you won't miss all the granularity that the masses enjoy, you will somehow enjoy it for what it is.
That only works up to a point and then you start to wonder, how much better things could be if only you could do X or Y, how much longer are we supposed to wait for seemingly little things? It's exactly those things that make using a good OS, a great OS. e.g. Why am I still forced to have a single volume level for an alarm, why can't I choose a snooze time.. and so on.
It might only be 8 months since WP8's launch but for me, it's been 2 years and 9 months of waiting for the same little improvements. Let's not forget that some of us got burned when we couldn't couldn't upgrade to WP8 and worse, some are STILL waiting/hoping that our WP7.5 devices might get WP7.8. So even on the big things, we've been very forgiving.
How are we supposed to "sell" WP to our friends, colleagues and families when we have so much of our own reservations and mini disappointments to contend with. We have to talk like politicians - if someone asks "can you sync WP directly to Outlook?" We have to reply, "erm, we've got the best camera in any smartphone, it's called the Lumia 1020."
I dread to think where we'd be without Nokia right now - they are truly innovating where Microsoft fears to tread. And I don't get what the hold-up is. Either there's a lack of direction and focus, or the priorities are all wrong or there's not enough devs and perhaps too many managers and managerial layers, I don't know but something for the size of Microsoft, is not right. I'm hoping that now that the OS divisions have merged, things will move more quickly, we need more spirit like the Windows team. They're pushing out new updates for Windows 8.1 Preview almost every week, how is that possible??!
The official Windows Phone UserVoice website is crammed-to-bits with suggestions, feedback, anxious pleadings, but the communication that comes back is infrequent, unrepresentative and cringe-worthy sometimes and totally obscures the obvious need to catch-up with the competition. MS: hurry-up.