They also don't usually support softsubs or multiple audio tracks, which are completely standard in anime releases. As a result of that, the anime community pretty much gave up on device compatibility when they left XviD behind. People who really want mobile versions tend to transcode, resize and "harden" the subs, but that's a lot of work.

That said, I agree that "annoying" is the right word in this case. The Hi10p switch has caused a lot of problems even for people with PCs - software support took ages to reach acceptable levels, and it requires a lot more CPU power on the decoding side for a very minor quality increase. They could've waited 6-12 months before pushing for wider Hi10p adoption, and I think it would've gone much more smoothly.

I was actually surprised to find my settop box supported mkv, multiple audio tracks and can even display styled subtitles unstyled (it would need specific support for substation alpha to do this).

Software support for 10bit was pretty much there in some form when they majority started using 10bit, it is a lot more wide spread now (mostly a few programs like mplayer2, vlc and MPC:HC). Support for embedded products (like settop boxes) will be a long time, or maybe never.