It's actually been really nice to remove all the Google apps and find apps with UIs I actually like rather than the Google-branded blinding-in-the-dark stark-white look they're shoving on everyone these days.
The fact that you are able to do that is a strong indicator that even if the apparent claim that "Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications" were to reflect Google's actual intent, it's clearly not working very well.
It's really not, because I'm a career IT specialist, with a degree in software development and a ton of experience. For anyone outside of that, Google makes it very scary and very difficult to do.
Google's "openness" is what I refer to as "just enough rope to hang yourself with". They only are open insofar as they know you can't successfully compete with them.
