I think back in the day, we had more diversity on the market. In the pre-smart-phone era Nokia came out with silly keyboard designs regularly. We had blackberrys at one time. And now they all look the same. Slightly different form-factor but that's about it. You can spend $1200 to get a status-symbol phone but that does practically the same my $350 phone does. (Okay, Samsung tries silly flip-phones but I don't like them.) All the more recent attempts kinda failed. Like Motorola doing attachable acessories, or Google trying to invent a modular phone. (I believe Samsung Dex, LG's WebOS etc are also a thing of the past.)

I'd like some company to be bold and try new things. For Linux it'd be probably enough if some current SoC got free software support (and drivers for the camera, peripherals etc). We could buy a standard phone then. But currently I don't see that happening. All the phones with mainline support are very old and/or severely underpowered. And there is no one phone with a big free software community behind it. Well, Pine64 tried...

Valve seems to be more successful with their Linux endeavours. Maybe we can expect more from that corner of portable Linux devices. And the Steam Deck costs like half an S23 Ultra (or iPhone).

You focus on performance while I focus on the ability to tinker. That's perfectly legitimate and we don't have to have the same needs. It though shows me that we don't have the same understanding about the point of Pine64, especially as you mention Termux or rooting (which I've both used and done numerous times, sadly) as if it was equivalent to selling an actual Linux phone in the first place. I actually do NOT want Android. The point I believe is not to sell a replacement for end users today (even though, clearly, it would be nice, and I believe Purism is closer to that) as it says on the product page, but rather show that a legitimate (again, not hacks) alternative is possible but it must be built by the community. And yes, I do tell people who make criticism that it's not enough because very often it shows what I believe is the case here, a lack of understanding of what it takes. That being said, again, I sincerely enjoy being proven wrong (means I can learn, new opportunities), hence why I'm not teasing you when I say I can put my money where my mouth is if you can do better. I believe in fact that's what open source is all about, we're in it together, to do better, to be better.

Its not illegal unless its an exit node, and even that works in some cases.