I have to chime in on the opposite spectrum. I had an evo and use a note 2 as the primary phone. I rooted the evo and put on Cynogen because I got more from the phone by doing so. Removing touchwiz and putting on cynogen or other aosp on the note would net me less functionality this time around. Unless google adds a stylus to their spec I don't see the (absolute) inferiority of forking the aosp trunk.
call it redhat vs debian.