If your phone is running the right version. Which you don't get to decide.
People care "how they get there" when the phone they purchased a month ago can't run a cool new app because the manufacturer or their network provider decided they should be using a 2 year old version of android and that upgrades are not allowed.
This is true. My perception of android is definitely affected by the fact that I have a rooted phone and run CM - but for the general populace they'll never be able to take advantage of most things. Which is really unfortunate.
People care "how they get there" when the phone they purchased a month ago can't run a cool new app because the manufacturer or their network provider decided they should be using a 2 year old version of android and that upgrades are not allowed.