No crapware on vodafone HTC devices
Ive had 3 HTC phones on vodafone in the past, a Hero, a Wildfire and a Nexus one since UK launch and none of them have had any vodafone apps or anything like that, the only vodafone branding on the devices is on startup as an addon to the splash screen, no external branding and the Nexus one has nothing at all.
Also vodafone is actually the best network in the UK and the biggest in the world, it owns 45% of Verizon in the USA (fun fact for you all) and ive never had any signal issues anywhere in Europe or the UK and i do travel a lot, but thats just my experience.
So i believe the Vodafone UK 4 week exclusivity is a good thing, i will probably buy the phone SIM-Free and put my SIM only contract sim in the phone works out hundreds of pounds cheaper that way over just a few months.