[Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note 3] micmars:
Yes..It Has Been Talked About...

I appreciate your post, and find it to be a good launch-point for some observations of my own. What is to follow was merely sparked by what you wrote, and is not by any means a response to it. Free association if you will.

Sprint Note 3 TouchWiz KitKat has been talked about for more than 7 weeks...

It started 52 days ago here on 30 January 2014, with the NA4 leak engineering build...yet no one would blame a dev or themer whom did not want to dive into the hard work of rom development with a leak. Kind of like doing restoration work on a house you are renting...seems like wasted effort.

It then obtained an official tar release on 20 February 2014, 21 days later, or 31 days ago, which was simultaneous with the ROM's official push from Sprint.

It was also DeOdexed and Odexed on that same date, which by my measuring stick is the official date that development work began. The base stock thread from which all TouchWiz ROM development work springs began 6 October 2013, with the DeOdex and Odex versions of MI5; it is now 137 pages/1360+ posts and counting, with the official NABD rom base being deployed on page 49, so thus 70% of the thread is KitKat, 30% is Jellybean...quite a feat in one-month's period.

Since 20 February 2014, we've attained...

-->Hotspot

-->4-1 reboot

-->Boot animations

-->Themes for stock roms that work well and look stunning to some

-->Mature, stable roms that are each unique in their own way, either by look, performance, or both

***IMHO, more roms does not mean better....it is the quality of the roms on-hand that I highly value

-->Native call recording that does not yield static but actually records calls (something our dev community seems to have accomplished in faster time than most)

-->Ported roms

***XNote

***I'm personally testing as of this writing a ported T-Mobile rom that is blazing fast and is a wonderful experience overall

-->Universal porting script for this phone (not unique to XDA by any means, but surely unique to this device)

-->ROM that actually performs settings behind the scenes during install, much the way the carriers release rom updates en masse, something truly groundbreaking, the significance of which we can only imagine, but it is a major milestone

***And so much more to come

When I look at the trajectory of development for this phone's version of KiKat, I am proud of both our devs and also our users.

Compare it further to the days of MJ4, and the full host of stable roms from the first DeOdex release, and I'd say we are running ahead of schedule (we are, just have a look for yourself).

So while the hard work is being lain by the folks here doing the heavy lifting, I highly encourage all to make a choice that is right for them. One individual's undesirable-ugly rom may be another's must-have. I'll defer to each user as to whether they may choose to upgrade. I personally started 54 days ago, when I could go back, and yet I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

I would add that some of those short-length threads to which you allude are deceiving, inasmuch as half of the discussion of the KitKat version of a given rom was being discussed in the MJ4/JB 4.3 version of same.

I choose not to imbibe AOSP 4.4.2, though I admire them greatly, and yet comparing it to TouchWiz KitKat seems rather an apples-to-oranges endeavor. One will not experience KitKat on the Note 3 as it was intended unless one takes in the manufacturer's version of same. They are just different. I'm unclear how thrilling AOSP is to some, or if one could aver with any degree of certainty if the majority has chosen not to upgrade.

In a few weeks, it is not a choice, as the phones will be leaving the stores already loaded with KitKat (upgrade already pre-installed). And for them, they ain't going back. And they will be here, hopefully as thrilled as I with the wide variety of options gifted to us by the incredible creativity of our fine community.

Lol®