Author here. Thanks for reading. I concede that its possible to manage Bitmaps without issue. But I'd argue there are tons of resources (and SO questions) because the system in place is such a mess. Recycling bitmaps manually is a non-functional(and not elegant) solution for many use cases and really should be unnecessary in a environment featuring a GC. (though i understand why the implementation is the way it is).

I feel like it is a limitation of the framework. The problem exists because of limitations of the OS and the solutions for the problems (tiered memory-disk caches, custom remote image widgets) are "challenging" because of the limits. The problem itself (build the cache or remote widget) isn't conceptually or technically hard, its only hard because of the tools at our disposal.