Think what you are saying was true with CDMA phones back in the day, but LTE and even randome CDMA phones are supposed to be able to be developed for Verizon randomly and just take a sim and be on the network. Verizon just needs to certify them somehow and is really only supposed to verify it won't screw up their network, but so far they have kept most large OEMs from bothering with this unsupported by VZW device program.
As you can see here, only commercial sale oriented devices have went through this program. Technically though it's supposed to approve consumer devices marketed at open and hackable sorta devices and that was the whole point of opening this open network initiative portal as this portal was created mostly to placate the FCC and consumer groups and such that were siding with Google after all the C-block rules and auction days. As you can see at the link no such consumer device that is full open and hackable has ever been certified and then marketed independently after passing through this cert process.
http://opennetwork.verizonwireless.com/
