Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device, just like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system until UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free GNU/Linux poped up).
That's true, however before UTUTO-e came along, people still needed a platform to use to work on. IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution at the time.
RMS never recommended Debian to people.
It is one thing that you as a developer have a device with non-free software and trying hard to replace it or even that you run a system where you removed all the non-free bits your self, but it is another thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends in the vauge hope that someone, maybe, when all planets are aligned exactly right, will replace the non-free software on this device.
I find this quite frightening. What is next? Free copies of Windows Vista to people so that they can write a free replacement?
If there are devices that are already mostly-free, then this seems like a better starting point than a device which is entirely non-free, or even one that hasn't been designed yet.
I feel that this is missing the point, a device that is `mostly-free' still has non-free software, and giving such a device to people, let along recommending it is just as bad as handing out copies of a non-free program. This isn't about a starting point to writting free software, but distributing non-free software to people; it was wrong when we didn't have a completely free system, and it still wrong.
Cheers.