> That said, the iOS App Store is filled with crap as well, they just do a good job of curating a front page, and the category list pages.

Very true. Once you delve into some of the category pages, or the search, you find many many pages of utter garbage. But the 'front page' experience is carefully curated to look like the cream of the crop.

I feel iOS is too curated and too Draconian in what they will accept.

I would much rather have to sift through garbage to find the app I want, then to have a company like apple tell me what I am allowed and not allowed to install on the device I paid them 100's or over a $1,000 to "own"

Would you be happy if you could sideload apps and leave the app store curated?

You can do this using an MDM solution on apps that have enterprise distribution licenses.

Yep -- search for something like "fart button" and marvel at hundreds / thousands of apps for this, even for iOS. There are definitely some very high-quality iOS apps, but they have a ton of crap as well. Android is worse, and MS / Amazon are so bad that even finding the legitimate thing you want and know the name of is a hassle. Microsoft also compounds this by making installation a hassle and almost impossible to troubleshoot, so then you must try to find legit "fix windows store" programs and hope they're not just a timer with a progress bar asking you to pay $60 for the pro version.

The Kindle app store is as bad as Microsoft's one is being painted here. It's crammed full of dubious apps, many of which are clearly only there to deceive people into thinking their the official app from a provider.