"Your Honor, yes, I shot at him, but I missed!"
That's just ridiculous in so many ways. Even if you want to wall in your hardware to your own appstore, you should always provide SOME way of letting users install their own software, even if it's some hidden obscure option.
But I agree, its ridiculous that you need the manufacturers approval to deploy software _you_ have written on a device _you_ have bought and paid in full.
than "the general no tech-savvy population will have problems with malware and/or malicious apps they install without knowing what they are doing" (the problem the App Store is supposed to solve)
