For a lot of people, yes, that is the case; I'm not arguing there. At the same time, having tried the leaked release personally, I can say that the UI and performance improvements ARE actually tangible. As has been noted on the XDA forums, Thunderbolts seem to behave very differently across the userbase, even when running the same software. I was personally rather upset with how much Sense caused the TB to lag, and am looking forward to the official release to get a desensed version. Honestly, with just the community's modest improvements on the leaked version alone, my phone runs almost as fluidly as my girlfriend's Galaxy S III. I hope they are able to resolve the connectivity problems (the leak absolutely has some, although relatively minor), as this is a very solid release with the great 4.0 UI enhancements and extra control over the device.
If they would just drop Sense and make less dramatic modifications to the AOSP UI, I would love HTC. As it stands though, their custom interface is (at least on this hardware) bloatware that sacrifices usability for aesthetics.
