Super Conflicted. S4 or other

[cellphonedork]

I'm on unlimited data, coming from Galaxy Nexus (Boot unlocked, rooted, running AOKP), prior to that I had a OG Droid (boo tunlocked and rooted). I just got the S4 to replace the very damaged GNex. The S4 is on VRUAME7. From what I have read, there is no way to unlock the bootloader. I can use safe strap, and then rom alongside the original OS. This seems very convoluted and not really what I want. Now there is 4.3 upgrade as well. Probably little chance that we will see unlocked bootloader.

So, Do I deal with TouchWiz as Samsung and Verizon want me to use it, or do I send it back, keep unlimited data and buy another GNex, S4 developer, or another phone like Moto X, HTC that can be unlocked?

 

[dezymond]

I'm like you and came from the Gnex. I was a flash-o-holic with that phone. I had backups of 6 different ROMs at one time and actually switched ROMs throughout the day.

After all that, with my s4 that I got back in July, I'm still stock rooted. I recently grabbed the 4.4 launcher, but before that I was still on TouchWiz which I found to be pretty good, especially compared to what it used to be. I guess I got tired of finding the ROMs and waiting for things to flash. I think out of the box the s4 is an almost perfect phone for me. Rooting it just made it better.