1. sleek devices are more generally-appealing in the store/advertisements 2. it's easier to effect a rugged case on a sleek phone than a sleek case on a rugged phone. 3. oleophobic-style coatings cut down on finger-smear

Yeah, this is wild... I have a Droid 4 and one of the two good features it has (other than the fantastic keyboard of course) is its rubberized back grip. The OG Droid 1 was extremely good, to the point where I could put it on my slanted car dash for GPS use without any accessories and it would just stick there.

This should be a feature of all phones. There's nearly zero number of times I want my phone to move from where I've placed it.

I have the hard plastic Speck case on my iPhone 4S... the front border is rubber and comes a couple mm past the glass, the back is hard plastic. I just set it screen-down and it never slides.

I'd guess because pockets. It's annoying to try and pull the phone out of your pocket, only to have it turn your pocket inside-out, thus dumping the contents of whatever else you had in there onto the floor.

Price no objection?

AT&T has a phone that's some serious shit. We got a demo the other day... and that thing resists drops, high temps, freezing, water splash (or underwater to a couple of feet... don't remember).

It was some serious hardware. Of course, it's not running Android, yet if you want indestructible, I was impressed with this thing.

Me, personally: My phones last approx 2 years. My iPhone 5 (got it around 1 year ago I think) is all busted up. I'm not an Apple lover, yet this thing is tough. EVERY panel on it is broken, bent, shattered... and it still works without a hitch. Props to Apple on that.

Seems like a company should get more props for a product that doesn't actually break every exterior component within 1 year.

My N9 is well over a year old and has zero broken external parts. And of course the phone itself still works.

Given that a smartphone has virtually no moving parts inside, continued functionality absent being submerged or crushed is not a particularly noteworthy achievement.

There is the samsung Rugby. Hardened, waterproof, etc.

Fingerprints.