Ah, Vlad, I'm afraid it's not that black and white. At least, it isn't anymore.

I'll be the first to admit that I was a big believer — dating back to the release of the first "skinned" device, the HTC Hero in 2009 — in holding the stock Android experience in the highest regard, a good rung or two above every OEM's misguided bastardization. I looked at Android no differently than I looked at Windows: there's a clean install, and there's the garbage that hardware manufacturers pile on top. Obviously, a clean install is what everyone prefers — so much so, in fact, that Microsoft will happily charge you extra for one.

But in the Android world, that's a grave oversimplification of what's actually going on. To be completely pedantic about it, there's really no such thing as "stock Android" — the second you choose to power a device with Android, you've made the decision to customize it to support your specific hardware.

That doesn't excuse OEMs for producing terrible apps and tweaks on top of the stock experience, of course, but they're finally learning their lesson. Top-tier OEMs like Samsung, HTC, and LG have visibly improved their user experiences across the board in their most recent devices. And Samsung's latest effort — the oddly-named Nature UX atop Android 4.0 — is the first skin I've ever used that I can't conclusively say I like less than Google's untouched, Matias Duarte-blessed offering. That's impressive, considering how utterly terrible TouchWiz looked on Android 2.3.

We need to get away from the notion that OEMs are producing Android devices with crappy skins and embrace the reality, which is that they're not far off from what Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire. Yes, the Galaxy S III is running an operating system based on Android 4.0, but I'm not sure I'd call it an Android 4.0 phone — it's an Android-based phone running Nature UX. And that's okay. As long as we hold these OEMs' designers accountable for producing beautiful, usable UIs, I have no problem with that.

Jelly Bean is great. I have a Galaxy Nexus running it, and I'm excited about Google's tweaks. Google Now, I think, is the beginning of a revolution in how we think about mobile technology. But Samsung has handled its latest port of Android with tasteful kid gloves, and the Galaxy S III's hardware is significantly better in almost every way than the Galaxy Nexus's — so much so, in fact, that I'm unable to recommend the Nexus to a new buyer.

Might that change if the Wall Street Journal's report of an entire line of Nexus phones later this year comes true? Of course — but I expect the best OEMs in the business (Amazon included) to continue to make Android their own, and to do it in a way that commands our attention and respect.

Basically, Vlad holds a 2011 view of the Android industry. Problem is, it's 2012.