1. Java ME apps were sold directly to consumers with payment via premium SMS messages or through traditional payments. Free apps could just be downloaded from anywhere. All Java ME phones had a minimal web browser and there was *no* lockdown. The only thing carrier specific was setting up a premium SMS number, and there were plenty of "resellers" who had already done that for 99% of the carriers and would sell your content for a percentage.
2. The absence of lockdown made some features deliberately unavailable to apps.
3. Shortcomings in Java ME (like being stuck at Java 1.1 language level and not supporting the middle button) and incompetent quality assurance by Sun meant that the list of phone specific bugs was maddening, and that some things that should have standard interfaces had only vendor interfaces.
4. Touchscreen only phones were available from Palm and from several brands of Windows based phones. Top keyboardless phones from that era included the iPaq (not an Apple brand) series, which originally did not have the phone part, but later did. But there were many others, even Dell briefly had their own model. Obviously, Java was not included by Microsoft, but many vendors preinstalled a 3rd party Java ME implementation.
5. Note that unlike the suicidal "Windows Phone", "Windows based" phones ("Windows Mobile", "Windows SmartPhone" etc.) were almost as open as Android: All phones were rooted upon delivery, SDKs and source code access was free/cheap. Installation on production phones needed a signature from Verisign or the carrier, but there was no market or licensing restrictions, GPL was OK due to the "Solaris" clause in GPL 2 itself.

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