A lot of carrier-branded phones have features like that disabled in favor of only allowing the user to purchase ringtones from the carrier's marketplace where you pay upwards of $3-$4 per ringtone (i.e. ringtones, at 30s or less, cost more than buying the entire song on iTunes).
I would like to point out this is an American phenomenon. At least in India, the mobile market is completely open.
This. I think the iPhone was a complete boon to the US mobile market, which was suffering and locked down. In America, the iPhone is one of the most open handsets out there. However, everywhere else, where carriers have less of an ability to be quite as locked-down and evil, they're one of the least open.
