Google should do what the Mozilla project does with Firefox and use their Android trademark to enforce user-experience standards before this becomes an epidemic. If the carriers take their Android code and use it to punch their customers in the face like this, don't let them call it Android anymore.
The 'Android' trademark is fairly worthless to the carriers and manufacturers, and they mostly avoid it anyway. They could fork the OS anyway, since it's open source!
What Google could do is be a lot more aggressive with the certification process for their 'Google Experience' apps -- the carriers would at least pay attention if Google threatened to not allow them to distribute their closed-source apps: Marketplace, Maps, Gmail, etc.
Why? No-one's interested in the Android mark as-is.
That's the real criticism of that suggestion.
If Google threatened to take away their rights to use the Android name or logo they wouldn't bat an eye. The manufacturers and carriers are after the modern OS and saving the development time involved in "catching up" from their horrible old systems.
They prefer that their customers don't build up brand loyalty to something they don't control. Why do you think Verizon is selling Droid phones?
I guess I wasn't clear. If Google says "ship vanilla Android or nothing" (basically the same policy as Apple), carriers will choose some other OS that lets them load crapware. If Google says "you can choose to ship vanilla Android™ or DroidWeasel", I agree with you that the carriers will simply rebrand it.
