Re: The Android OS is utterly crippled by poor permission handling
"..the permissions are so broad-brush that in order to anything, every app can do almost anything.."
The apps can do exactly what the permissions would allow them to. Those permissions are transparent for you to see what they can do, they are also there for you to make sure they won't do anything beyond that.
In particular, they won't be able to hamper other apps, write/read to/from places they are only allowed to, say in the registry of the system. Unless there is a special permission to read the sd fat32 card, hey won' bea able to read it either. I myself format my sd card with ext4 fs, which is a little pain in the arse, thanks to the the strange Google's sdcard-phoebia.
Those permissions are to insure that the app's capabilities are limited and known in advance. We all know what happens with a platform lacking such system of permissions, we get ILOVEYOU, Mydoom, Blaster, Sobig Worm, Code Red, CIH, Klez, Melissa, Sasser, Bagle, Win32/Simile, Nimda, Conficker, Stuxnet (to mention just a few).
On the other hand, if you think that permissions are "broad-brush", what would you suggest? Not allowing to set most or all permissions for apps, or require a valid photo id from every app developer just to be able to set them?