Yes... They would.
Gapps and android are two separate things. There was an article on the front Page recently concerning this topic. It is not pure android you run, it is tw flavored android. Or sense flavored.
If Sammy or any other oem had to get their flavor approved, none of them really would. Most of the flavors violate or plain out ignore the guides Google had put down. On screen buttons being a perfect example.
Another good example is how flavors of Linux are there? Red Hat doesn't run to torvolds to get approval when they go up a version
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