Why I was keen on the wileyfox Swift when it came out - cynogen as standard, lots of nice features, just alas cynogen ceased/transitioned and the swift2 went AOSP and that's nearly 3 years old phone wise.

So people try, just that the core consumer market don't care/or aware of what such choices actualy mean for them still - hence, many do fail.

But some nice more open phones comming and getting better on prices. Until then, a good old supported phone for alternative OS that you can root and the likes of old samsungs, moto and pixel phones just seem to be the safer bets.

But doable today, just effort above what you would really want to be doing still.