I totally acknowledge that the iPhone provided a huge leap forward, and that it inspired / altered the direction android took - I'm very grateful for it.

It is precisely because it was so good that it was such a threat to the technology landscape. We could easily have descended into a windows like era of domination by one company, but this time with the company having complete control over every layer - hardware, software, even content. However we didn't, partly thanks to strategic mistakes that Jobs made (we could have a whole discussion about what those were but I think it would be counterproductive wrt this thread).

I think almost like a natural ecosystem the software world needs both open and closed systems in balance. Each one moves us forward in different ways at different times. It is when they get out of balance that we get stuck (the "windows" era being a good example).