> it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give me an address to return it."
Apple (and Google, with the Android equivalent) could do this easily, couldn't they? Wouldn't this also be useful for the case of devices that are lost and found, so that they can be returned to the owner?
At least on Apple's side (Find my iPhone), the owner can mark the device as lost [0], which will lock it and display a custom message on the lock screen. But a "pull" solution where a finder of the phone can contact the owner would be nice.
The owner can arrange for this, but not whoever finds the device. It would be nice to make this possible - perhaps with some appropriate policy around it, so that the feature can't be abused.