Ok this is just ridiculous -.-
Why is this addressed to HTC AND Sprint? I can understand HTC, but why Sprint? they have absolutely NO CONTROL over how a phone "looks" what so ever. "Oh you're gonna make the bezel white? Nope sorry, we think it looks better in black, so make it black." Does that make sense to anyone for a carrier to say this? Sure doesn't make sense to me.
The back covering is shiny, BIG DEAL. How is this shiny back any different than any other phone's backing? If I remember correctly some, if not all of the Nexus phones, have a shiny back. My old Palm Pre had a shiny back. My fathers old Palm Centro had a shiny back. The white HTC Evo 4G has a shiny back! (or at least my younger brother's does, its the only white one I've personally seen to be honest). There are so many phones in this world that have a shiny back, so why complain about one more? I can understand if people are worried about it being a "finger print magnet" but again, big deal people! You can simply just wipe those off.
People even had a similar issue with the HTC EVO 3D's backing; how its smooth on a very tiny portion of the side, yet has a cross hatch like texture on the rest. I don't know how many people I've seen complaining about that when they were seeing pictures of the device, but did that SERIOUSLY stop people from buying the phone? NO. People still lined up at the door waiting for its release. The same people who said "That is ugly, I'm not gonna buy it" or "Its a horrible design choice, I'm going to get another phone JUST because the back has a look I've never seen before".
Everyone is going to make such a hype about a shiny backing that Sprint has nothing to do with, and is something no one can change regardless of how hard they think complaining is going work. The design is what it is, so suck it up and move on with your life. You're still gonna end up getting the phone even if you dont like having a shiny backing, so why waste your energy complaining.
Besides if you're soooooooooo many people truly are bent out of shape because of something so stupid, you can bet that there is going to be a cell phone accessory company who is going to manufacture different colored/styled backings for the device anyway. So if you truly can't stand having such a shiny back, you can simply just wait for a few day or weeks, and buy yourself a different backing, just like you'll probably be the same guy who needs to buy a larger battery for it anyway. And if that's the case (with the battery), you'll end up getting an off color, matte finished backing anyway, cause i have yet to see any manufacture of extended batteries offer backings with their batteries that are the exact texture and color as the original.
Edit: although having posting this, I failed to recall if the phone actually has a removable battery or not XD I'm seeing some stuff about it being non removable, soo if that's the case, then the comment about the extended battery can be ignored i guess XD