As much as I like pine, the pinephone is heavily subsidized by librem who actually hires software devs to make things work. If you like your pinephone, you have librem to thank for it in large parts.
Yeah they aren't fully equivalent offerings. But you could spend $800 on a donation to the KDE Plasma Mobile, Unity8, SXMO projects, $100-$200 on the hardware itself, and come out even, no?
For years linux people we asking for hardware like pine gives: just let us have it and we will write drivers and make it work. Now that someone delivers they get criticized for it. While Pine isn't perfect, they are filling a niche that I've long wanted.
Not everyone uses or wants Phosh/GNOME.