[wgren]

That is a risk. But if you don't mind rooting the phone, you can run Cyanogen and other's mods on it with plain Android. That way you will get the latest version really fast, if you feel you need it and is willing to sacrifice Sense.

Also Google is working on making future versions of Android modular, so users can download minor updates through Android Market. Big OS number changes will then hopfully come much more seldom and be reserved for major kernel updates and so on. Hopefully this will make it easier for HTC and others to release updates faster.