And why the hell would they spend the money to R&D a new iPhone 6 series design 6 months before the 6s becomes last years model?
How is it a Frankenstein phone? Nothing about its exterior appearance is freakish, it's still the same elegant design as it was created with, and the internals are all the latest iPhone components, with the exception of basically the screen which is an excellent screen to begin with, and already engineered for the device.
Add to that they managed to actually drop the price $250 over the only other phone to have most of these features, because they didn't re-engineer this from the ground up.
You're criticizing Apple for lack of innovation, when none was called for here. If Apple had released the SE for $549, then you could criticize all you want, but they didn't. This wasn't the 5c, which was the same phone crammed into a plastic shell and sold for the same price it would have been if they'd left it in a much more desirable metal case and bumped it down just like the 5s which followed. It was an updated 5s introduced at a price less than what the 5s was already selling for!
There will be a new 7 series 4" phone which will cost $200 more than the SE, which will be engineered from scratch. But trying to diminish what this SE represents for both Apple and the customer is pathetic.