I've never thought the hardware aspect of the notch is the issue. What they did with the screen makes sense. It's some of the software choices and the design guidelines that I'm questioning. After watching many first look videos, I think the "zoomed" mode makes sense in many situations, especially in augmented reality applications, it is even a good option to have for video/photos (as long as you can toggle). However, in regular apps, especially ones with a white background, the notch sticks out like a soar thumb, and I wish it would've been obscured in those situations.
Apple is not the type of company to make any big changes once they are set on a course, so this is the way it's going to be for a long while. Whereas, for example, the makers of the Essential phone could decide tomorrow that they want to obscure their notch (not saying they are in any way better, just giving an example to contrast with Apple). I know Apple has done things like offer the "reduce motion" option afterwards, but this is more complicated than just disabling animations, so I don't think they will offer an option to address this.
Ultimately, I do think the iPhone X is overall the best iPhone we have right now, and yes, people will get used to Apple's choices or move on to another brand of smartphone or stick with an older model of iPhone. But I do hope they give themselves more flexibility in changing the UI design then I expect them to. The UI/UX needs a lot of refinement anyway, which is to be expected of course.
