I suspect it's part of their strategy for deflecting from the "fragmentation" issue - "what version of Android does your phone run? Jelly Bean? Snap!"

I also reckon that they will start releasing bits of the OS via the Play Store, bypassing the manufacturers and carriers (as they are already doing with the standard keyboard).

They do that with Google Play Serivces (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...) already. The things 4.3 has w.r.t. bluetooth, opengl es support, etc. are probably really difficult to ship independently.

> I'm missing the times when every release was a new sweet thing.

There's never been a time when all point releases had a new codename. Eclair covered 2.0 and 2.1. Honeycomb covered 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. I don't see any evidence they've changed their naming practices.

4.0 to 4.1 was a jump from ICS to JB, but that was an exception.

Except for 2.1 -> 2.2 (Froyo) -> 2.3 (Gingerbread). So, not very exceptional.

None of the most recent releases have really seemed significant enough to warrant a new release name.

... but there are so many flavor jelly beans.

Honeycomb did the same thing.