Functionality over looks
(A) on Windows mobile or other terrible OS/UI combinations.
My Nokia, which has a reputation for not having a good UI but that goes 3 deep - i think your over exaggerating, with the 8 levels.
(B) Badly and buried 8 menus deep.
Again, another exaggeration, plenty of phones have large enough screens - certainly larger than postage stamps.
(C) screens the size of postage stamps
Then you haven't used enough cell phones.
(D) No inter-connections between apps, the way Apple does it.
Another report said someone thought the iPhone sucked.... To configure my Nokia for email for 3 email addresses took me 5 minutes. If it took them for 4 hours then they are complete retards. Its not that difficult.
One report said that it took a person with a Nokia 4 HOURS to configure his email, as opposed to approx. 2 minutes on the iPhone.
Over 90% of desktop computing is windows based. So windows must be the best.
95% of people think the iPhone is the best thing since sliced bread - FAR better than all the others.
It took me LESS than 5 minutes to upload my ringtones from my previous phone, and set up the tones for SMS, MMS ( Oh, iPhone can't do MMS ), incoming calls, etc. Oh sorry, iPhone can't do that - Apple ( and Apple alone - not RIAA enforced ) forces you to re-purchase your ring tones from iTunes.
When I went abroad, to save on calls, I could change my SIM card to a local SIM card. Oops, iPhone can't do that either - you have to pay for expensive roaming.
A lot of basic functionality you can get from a cheap cell phone, strangely, is lacking from the $399 iPhone. Very, very, very strange indeed.
Nokia allows me to freely install the many many excellent *native* 3rd party applications out there that enrich the phones ability. I don't drop calls, crash the eastern Rogers network or brick my phone as a result. If I want to, I can also install widgets ( like OSX widgets ) too.