[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]Agreed about the 1st part. But even going to WP7/8, the OS provider ALWAYS leaves work for the hardware manufacturer to finish and tweak...[/citation]
AFAIK, WP builds are made available for download and install... meaning that an end-user can do that without waiting on the carrier to release the "sanctioned" version.
I might be wrong, though, but I do have in my bookmarks a shortcut that says "WP build blah blah roll out started, get it now here...". I saved that in case my dream (see above) gets materialized, in which case I would grab a Win Phone (unlocked) to play with it.