I do like the fact that we finally get to join in on the claimed "early adopter" program that Microsoft said about when WIndows Phone 8 was announced (years ago it seems). As the update added some features and possably performance gains, day to day stuff is still the same for the most part (wish we got the smaller tiles on the 928).
Still the fact of the matter, this a OS upgrade, not a phone upgrade, What I mean, to fix BUGs that is to each phone (Nokia, HTC, Samsung, etc), you will have to wait for a carrier update or firmware to fix those issues. This update will not fix each phones issues...
And I'm tired (your words) of your argument. Carriers require Apple to validate their modem firmware operates correctly on their networks just the same as they do Nokia.
Having a 'store' and providing 'tech support' has nothing to do with carrier certification.
As to my 'second point'. The world works through definition of ICDs and APIs. Windows Phone and iOS updates are extremely unlikely to cause network compatibility issues as the phones all have entire cellular modems dedicated to managing the network connection and the network is mostly protected from the OS, at least from a certification perspective.
By your argument a laptop with a GSM card in it would need re-certifying when you run Windows Update. But it doesn't because there is separation between the modem and OS.
There is no reason updates like GDR3 cannot and should not be frequently rolled out to Windows Phones.
The difference here between apple and Microsoft is, Apple will give the carrier the update in advance and tell they they HAVE to do be done on a date for release, it might be 2 months, it might be 2 weeks anyway about it, it will be released on X day.
Microsoft does not have the market share to be able to do this, Not at this point or is not demanding it like Apple is. This is why GDR2 came out to some carriers but, not others, just like all WP8 updates (do you remember waiting for 7.8 from your carrier ? The HTC Trophy still does not officaly have it as I understand)