It's true that it's ignorant to say someone in another country can't speak English, but that's beside the point.
I'm not claiming to be an "expert" on OLED technology but I'm a geek and I spend a lot of time researching and following the latest technologies. Lately I've been eagerly anticipating OLED devices so I do happen to know more than the average person who might just say that "they have really good contrast".
With that in mind, it's my opinion that anyone claiming that OLED was supposed to be a perfect technology without significant burn-in potential is ill-informed. On the contrary, OLED has had keeping a predictable and consistently-toned lifespan as its first and greatest obstacle.
For example, it was only just recently that OLED displays became at all viable, because for various reasons it's difficult to make a good, long-lasting blue OLED light. One part of the problem is this: Did you know your eyes generally only perceive blue a tiny fraction as well as they can see red and especially green? (hence the reason red, yellow, and green are used almost exclusively on anything important - traffic lights, warning signs, etc)
OLED's greatest strength - the fact that "black" pixels are truly black, is also its greatest weakness. Those pixels are inactive and, as PR people will tell you, this means they aren't consuming much if any battery power. But each pixel - in fact, each subpixel you should remember - has its own lifespan. If those black ones aren't on, then when they do turn on they're going to be a little brighter than the others since they aren't as worn.
When a pixel's at 50% illumination let's say, maybe it's not aging very quickly, but it's still aging. However, when you have something static on the screen at all times, like a status bar, each subpixel that the pattern is composed of will age at a predictable rate, inevitably leaving a visible "ghost" on everything ever displayed on the screen in the future. If you even leave something static on it for just 5 minutes there will be a "ghost" but it will be so inconsequential it will never be visible to the naked eye.
This is completely unavoidable regardless of the display technology since there's always a light-producing element that gradually becomes less and less effective - plasmas still do it relatively bad, LCDs do it, CRTs do it, etc. LCDs mainly just lose their backlight but they do have a kind of burn-in, my HDTV downstairs has several discernable letterboxes burnt into it.
It remains to be seen whether OLED will be better or worse in the very long term, but it's never going to be totally perfect. Unfortunately... very unfortunately. Otherwise, OLED is a tremendous advancement over previous display technologies in every important way.
However, there IS a perfectly simple fix in this case, but it's not quick. Get an image of the pattern that caused the problem, invert it, and put it in the place of the original pattern until you notice the problem has evened out. Then it's just a matter of wear-leveling - have software keep track of how long a given static image has been actively on the screen, and at a certain interval, replace it with the inverted version. This is what they do at many airports and other places with information displays on flat panels.
What you need to do is convince a developer to make a theme that just has the status bar inverted. I haven't bought an Android phone yet (planning to very soon), or I'd do it. I'm right on the verge of deciding whether or not to buy a Nexus One today, so who knows, maybe I'll actually be the one to do it.
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edit: Back to the start of the post, I can say with confidence that nobody who knows anything about OLED - be it OLED in general, AMOLED, PMOLED, or whatever other flavor - would claim that it was/is expected to be a technology without this weakness. It's true that in the future things like firmware-based wear-compensation for example or just better manufacturing techniques might reduce the severity of the problem, as has happened with plasma displays. But it's nothing short of either being A) grossly misinformed, B) willfully ignorant, or C) entirely just full of **** to claim that this sort of problem is a sign of anything besides an inherent weakness in the technology.
It was most definitely known about when the Nexus One was designed by everyone in charge of making the decision of what display to use, and it was known about by the manufacturers of said display. It wasn't a bad move necessarily either, from any standpoint - they chose to use the best display technology available to them at the time, and since it was right on the bleeding edge, it is imperfect. It's a problem that unfortunately can only be borne by the early-adopters, just as it was with plasma displays. You buy a car, and by the time you're off the lot there's a newer model that doesn't have that "no brakes" problem. Still, it's a nice car and you should enjoy it.
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