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If you can be arsed messing about with ROMs you can download the correct ROM for your phone and country from here.
I am pretty sure they come without any "extras" (at least the S4 ROM I got had none).

It's a verifiable fact

The only thing verifiable here is that you're not getting them. Head over to sammobile.com and see a steady string of officially published firmwares. The latest version 2 weeks ago was the may security update. They literally rolled it out a week after google did. https://www.sammobile.com/2018...

Hell, this article is about that very fact.

If you think that then maybe you should learn to read. This article has nothing to do with regular updates and everything to do with service life.

Samsung does not release updates for every version of every model phone

Hmmm I swear those goalposts were over there a minute ago from your S8. No matter, you'd still be quite wrong. Samsung literally push out several hundreds of firmware updates every year for the line of phones, they are all published and you can go sort through them yourself, no need to take my word for it. Just because you don't get them doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Currently right now the latest security patch level for Android is May 2018. The following Samsung devices have had updated firmware rolled out: Galaxy S7 J2 J1Mini J7 A6 A8. The flagship devices get updated towards the end of the month with a more staged approach, S9/+ S8/+ Note8 already having updated firmware out in Asia, some of the EU, and some US carriers with the remainder expected to be done within the next week or two. Until then if you're on the unlucky list you're just going to have to live with your 3 week old security version (April release). Hell the J2 got the update the same day that Google published it. Their policy is to update flagship phones towards the end of the month (cheaper phones are good for ironing out bugs in security fixes).

My lack of updates was not exclusive to my carrier.

Doesn't need to be, either way it's not Samsung's fault. Your phone has had it's updates published regularly.

Yes, OS updates aren't security updates. They are, however, no less fucking important.

I think you need some perspective. You're owed security, but not an endless string of new features (not that modern Android really has any).

Google patched Blueborn within a day, and Samsung (as the major iPhone competitor) rolled out Blueborne fixes within about 2 weeks of it going public.

The problem is the damn carriers. They delay the manufacturer patches while they do their own "testing" and tweaking (i.e. installing software you can't uninstall), sometimes for months. Apple was able to strongarm the carriers into conceding control over software updates on iPhones. None of the Android manufacturers has enough marketing clout to do the same. And Google can't because they've released Android as Open Source. If they try to strongarm the carriers, the carrier can just blow off Google and install a custom version of Android on their phones.

What we need is to break up the vertical integration in the cell phone market. Cell tower networks, cellular service, and cellular phones should all be managed and marketed by different companies. No single company should have their fingers in more than one of those markets.

That's the problem: you can't really know when you buy an Android. Generally the bigger manufacturers and the best selling models get longer support. Also the more expensive models tend to get longer support. But that's not a guarantee. If we look at just Samsung, some models within the last several years will get Oreo but some will not. For example Samsung Galaxy S7, S8 models are will get Android Oreo but S5, S6 will not. Also for some models, Samsung has not said for sure.

Eheheh... show me (but aim away from my face).

Apparently, it's virtually the same battery design .

So will the next note have an end user replaceable battery or are they going to gamble another $6 billion to save maybe $50 million in battery costs (nothing to do with design and everything to do with cheaper batteries and designed product failure to ensure replacement). PS Samung calling people who prefer user removable batteries fanboys just makes Samung a bunch of fuckwit marketing dickheads https://www.sammobile.com/2016....

Actually, there is also a Lollipop 5.0.1 update (also pushed OTA) for the Galaxy S4 i9500 (the phone of the article). I have it running currently on my S4. source: http://www.sammobile.com/firmw...

NOT because it's good
NOT because it's intuitive
because designers told us it's good so most idiots say "this is in, it's good"
It's as bad as fucking fashion, for fucks, fucking sakes.

I'm SO over it, websites, phone apps, now phone OS's - everything is going SINGLE colour FLAT, no shading, NO DIVIDING LINES (ARGH) just complete white space (or any other colour)
The new dialler on the Samsung iteration of Lollipop is disgusting. All the numbers are just on one big flat shaded mess.
Forget about what's "cool" forget about aesthetics, tell me which one of these looks easier to hit the fucking numbers on?
http://www.sammobile.com/wp-co...

It's 19'th level, fucking desk smashingly frustrating. I'm a NERD, I'm a GEEK, I'm a fucking IT guy, I WANT TO DO THINGS AS FAST AS HUMANLY FUCKING POSSIBLE. The only thing holding me back should be my fingers, my computer or my device. I should not be sitting there mentally processing shit because it's obfuscated with poor design.

The textless icon 'fad' (which saves them translation costs) is probably the worst part. It's full spec kitten stamping insanity. I don't give 2 fucks if the wifi icon is ubiquitous, they have now dozens if not hundreds of icons for applications across the world on iOS, android, windows which are fucking meaningless and we're meant to know what they do.
"Well just press them to learn once" NO - a, that could be a bad thing I don't want to do and b, EVERY time I see the icon, I wonder "is that?...." I shouldn't think that. I should see the text too. The more I can instantly relate to the better.
I even think (despite it likely being ugly) that we should be consider using colours more.
Wouldn't it be nice if the 'send' button was always not only a "play" looking icon on my Android device, but it was LABELLED "send" and it was ALWAYS green.
Delete / trash icon? Always a trash bin, ALWAYS labelled with text, ALWAYS red? That's THREE fast things which will help me very very (very!) quickly identify what i want to click.

I tire so much of the 0.4'th of a second it takes my brain to 'double check' if I'm going to press the right thing. Those 0.4'ths wouldn't exist if this shit was done properly.

I apologise for ranting but this stuff is BAD, it's UGLY and it's SHIT and I'm ultra sick of it. It's hipster, flat, bland, wank for the sake of wank and it's costing me time.

One more thing, I no longer work in IT support. It was hard enough as it is when I did it, I couldn't begin to empathise enough with some poor piece of shit helpdesk guy now, who not only has to do that work but tell them "no click the icon that looks like an old cupboard but with 2 circular dials on it, no it's up the top right, no there's no colour, no there's no label, yeah it looks like........" for fucks sake.
Madness, utter madness.
LABEL things
put COLOUR on things
USE DIVIDING LINES - 1 pixel thick lines to separate sections ain't gonna kill anyone

If you work in the UI / UX industry and support this stuff. Kill yourself
No, I mean it, actually kill yourself, you're a scourge on technology.

I don't agree here. If I decide to use a button at the top left of my app to go backward in the screens, people will (rightfully) bitch at me for breaking the Android user experience. Of course, no one is "forcing" me, but I feel - strongly - compelled to abide by Google's UI rules.

I have numerous apps that have in-app navigation in addition to the back button at the bottom of my S4. In fact, with current versions of Android many system menus have a back arrow in the top left to take you back a menu in addition to the arrow at the bottom.

It was just a stupid example. I feel my post just flew right over your head...

Agreed it was a stupid example. It's not Android that forces the two additional buttons. Manufacturers opt to put the buttoms where they want or they can elect not to have hard buttons at all. You can barely see the buttons on Samsung's S4 so it's hardly cluttering the UI unless you have just turned the phone on or just touched the screen.

Other phones or tablets rely on soft buttons that display at the bottom of the screen.

Regardless of where the buttons are located or if they are hard or soft, it's hardly cluttering up the UI. It's two different approaches to do the same task. Neither is better or worse than the other for their basic functionality. One however gives you more options if you so desire to use them.

Maybe you should learn to use Google. There's plenty of quotes of 533mhz for the GPU from long before this article and Samsung's response.

One example in the comments section of this article from March which a very quick simple search dug up:

http://www.sammobile.com/2013/03/03/galaxy-s-ivs-specifications-leak-confirm-exynos-octa-powervr-sgx-544mp/

Or are you just being a fanboy and not actually interested in the facts? Because the comment you just posted is a complete lie which suggests that maybe that's the real problem you have.