[comex]

I think one point you are making is unfair. Many (most?) previous jailbreaks not named PwnageTool or redsn0w have had a single, non-configurable payload containing Cydia and various Unix tools, with the understanding that once it's installed, the user can use Cydia to do whatever they want. In the case of my jailbreaks (years ago), I don't remember anyone ever expressing a desire for an alternate payload, presumably for that reason.

Of course there's a difference between Cydia and a closed source, less generally useful application that the jailbreakers were paid a large amount of money to include, but I wouldn't call it an issue of transparency/configurability as such.

[bri3d]

Good point. I am unfairly using a subset of jailbreaks (PwnageTool and redsn0w) as an example of the community norm when that's really not the case.

I think the important distinction in the evad3rs release is indeed the one you make in the second paragraph of your post.

I do still think there's an issue of transparency, though: this letter carefully dances around the actual exchange of money for an unaudited blob in exchange for a lot of "we wanted to beat Saurik to a release" fluff.