Signed boot & recovery? HTC out of the running for phone purchases

An update to my The state of Android phones in relation to hackability post the other day. I guess I have to take back my views on HTC!

HTC has decided to start locking down their boot loaders with signed images with the release of the HTC Incredible S. This is garbage, and goes against the very spirit of Android. What happens when HTC decides to stop releasing updates for the phone, does this mean I am out of luck and have to be stuck with an old version of Android only 6 months after buying the phone? (As was the case with my HTC Legend if CyanogenMod hadn't released an updated Android.)

I don't know what Android phone I should be buying next time I get a phone? Looks like I'll be stuck buying the stock Google experience phones like the Nexus One and the Nexus S.