Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of those things that should be better with modern handsets and the security patch level for Android. Hopefully a fix for this is included in the November set. In general most bigger manufacturers have been somewhat decent in updating their flagship devices. With a Sony flagship from the last 18 months for example, you usually won't run more than two months behind on security updates. Samsung is similar if…
I have a HTC 10, a flagship device that's barely a year old the fact that I now have to wait a couple a months for a patch to what is clearly a critical vulnerability is just ridiculous. The fact that anyone without a flagship device should now throw that phone away because it will probably never be patched is despicable. I totally agree with your hope that this will kick both the manufacturers and Google in the butt…
It's just a word that means you paid more for having all the bells and whistles that the OEM could offer at the time, instead of going for the next-best model or such.
Fortunately, whether you can afford the best of the best with all the optional extras or a cheaper second-tier model doesn't affect the security of the device. And it shouldn't, because if you can't afford a "flagship" device, doesn't mean you can afford to get hacked either.
Unfortunately, while the security-update frequency ought to be comparable, it turns out that it's mainly comparably bad :-/