im not going to beat a dead horse here, but you have lost all credibility with me! how can you say the build quality is the same? Gorilla glass, nano coating, aluminum frame and kevlar back vs............ plastic!!! um, im not a genius, but im pretty sure i can safely say the maxx wins that one.
Also, for years, motorola has been known for the quality of their radio and antenna designs. Just because your phone gets acceptable coverage were you are located and between the places you travel, doesnt mean it is not outperformed by another phone. that is like saying that a honda and a ferrari perform the same because they both get you from point a to point b in congested new york city in the same time. while that is true, it doesnt mean the ferrari doesnt outperform the honda. it does. i have quantitative results from relatively extensive testing of both devices simultaneously.
your reference of the ui is also funny! 99% of the phone buying public have never heard of rooting and will never root. how can you discount that it has virtually the best stock phone experience of any phone? allot of rooters and rommers goal is to get AOSP, well the maxx virtually has it. trust me that is a good thing. also moto does have the developers edition available if thats the route youi want to go.
personally i was very into rooting and romming since my first og droid. what i have learned in the last 3 years is it is a time sucking waste! now that is purely my opinion, ill give you that. there is just no value in constantly messing with the phone. i have had no need WHATSOEVER to root my maxx and will have no need to root my maxx hd. what youll find when you buy a great phone is that it is awesome out of the box!! it is a phone!!
Here are some excerpts from a reviewer who you all know and i trust

Motorola is making some of the best hardware on the smartphone market today. Period. The company seems to have made a concerted effort over the past year to focus its efforts on quality materials and streamlined, across-the-board design language, and the RAZR HD line is the pitch-perfect fruit of its labor.
This is a premium design, definitely a step up from Samsung?s current strategy and right in line with the likes of the iPhone and HTC?s One series.
It?s covered with Gorilla Glass and splash-proof nanocoating, and lacks capacitive buttons, opting for on-display navigation the way Google intended.
The RAZR is noticeably brighter than the Galaxy S3, and performs admirably in direct sunlight unlike some of its competition.
I managed to get 36 hours of a single charge. And this is without using Smart Actions to squeeze out every last bit of juice. If I took a minute to truly optimize the device for battery life -- which Motorola?s SmartActions make very simple to do -- I have no doubt that I could push that up to 48 hours. Forget playback tests, forget silly HD video-on-loops in a lab. These are real-life numbers, and they?re unmatched by the competition. Prepare to be spoiled.
Motorola has chosen to stay as close to vanilla Android as possible And the minor tweaks that Motorola has made are welcome and useful.
you just got served!! jk, but seriously, you just got served!