Prices of components has gone down significantly. Price comparison would not hold out.
BTW the point I am trying to make is currently only available phone to developers (At least in US) gives a impression that Firfox OS is not worth the trouble. If Mozilla want to build dev support they need to sell a decently performing phone from their website and create positive impression with performance and usability.
Sure, the price of components has come down. That doesn't mean $179+contract wasn't a relatively expensive phone, though.
First, I agree with you, it doesn't send the right message to US devs. Openness aside, it doesn't do much to incentivize developing for it. I'd very likely buy a Nexus 4-level device and love it and develop for it. I don't know what Sony has scheduled, but maybe that would fit? If not, if you know of any on the horizon, I'd love to hear about it.
Second, the target market really isn't the US. Making a premium phone the flagship device wouldn't be representative of the low-end of the market, which is what they're really targeting, and is much bigger than the US anyway. The ZTE Open is pretty representative of their target audience, possibly more powerful than most. General OS performance is improving last I heard, but devs should target that level of device anyway.
I had Google G1 when it initially came out. I felt G1 performed lot better in late 2008(?) compared to how ZTE Firefox Phone worked.
Way too sluggish.