Is it really so hard to get a mobile phone?

So my n95 contract is up. I have a PAC code (to transfer my number to another provider. I still want to get the Sony Xperia X1 but still having been "released" on 30th September it is nowhere with any of the providers.
Vodafone here sent me a few emails to tell me that the X1 was available, but then when ordering it online having completed all the forms I got a page saying "sorry out of stock". So a new customer, invited by an email campaign, filling in lots of bits including the number transfer code, then gets told ooops sorry. A slight fail methinks.
Whilst in town I decided to go into the many mobile shops that intersperse the starbucks and macdonald on our hight streets. The vodafone shop was less than helpful, I heard them convincing another customer to buy something else. Mainly because they did not have even a static model of the x1 in the shop.
Then in carphonewarehouse they had an x1 model with prices and plans, but admitted when asked they had never had any in yet. (Where are they all then?)
So I wandered into t-mobile (who I am an existing customer with), they had a real functioning google G1 phone. I asked if they had any in stock, yes, they had one. So I thought, what the heck, it does not shoot video but it would be fun.
I was told the price plan, free with a £40 month plan. great. I then asked as an existing customer how would that work. To my surprise the shop assistant had a sharp intake of breath. Nope as an upgrade you have to buy the phone £500 or I was offered to be able to cancel my current contract, take out a new one and lose my number. So I cant just pay the saem and upgrade and be retained as a valued customer? erm no accroding to the shop guy.
That's customer service!
So, I would love to sign up to a new contract, pay the money and get the kit, but it seems that both as a new customer and an existing one the things I need are really not that important to these companies.