If Lightning is so important to you then you can still use Lightning-based iPhones. Nobody took away the hardware they sold you, they just mandated that the new ones adopt a common standard.

If lightning was vastly superior, they could still have a lightning port in addition to the usb, or make a different version with their propietary port for the rest of the world. But it wasn't superior.

I understand the added difficulty of making a version with a different port. Again, if it was Uber superior, it would have made for very good advertisemebt for apple.