Interesting point. Are we wanting the phone (i.e. the manufacturer) to brick the device when it's been perceived as stolen? I had always thought of cellphones like bikes and assumed that there'd always be some inevitable amount of theft, but the two devices aren't actually that similar.
I think there's enough of an incentive for hackers to figure out how to unbrick these phones that it wouldn't be much of a deterrent.
If the bricking were truly permanent, like blowing an efuse or something, the risk of false positives bricking phones that aren't really lost is probably higher than the phone makers are comfortable with.
