Do they even need to right now? haha. I mean they have a pretty huge market share in the US compared to AT&T (the number 2 guy).
About the "love to hate"... no I hate Verizon just as much as any other telecom, because it is just like the major automakers... where they are all screwing over the customers and lobbying the government to screw us over even more and also lock out any real competition.
That being said, I go with Verizon because they have hands down the best 4G coverage, even here in the busy Northern VA area, where you would think tech like this would be bleeding edge and such. Noone comes close to the coverage of Verizon. 3G wise, Verizon has easily has the best coverage here too. If you look at AT&T's map they say Nationwide coverage at 99% but with a big fat *asterisk*... if you go look at their real data, their 3G coverage looks pretty pathetic. This all is what irritates me about what Google did with their Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 keeping it away from Verizon. Because I would totally switch carriers, if they could even remotely compete on the 4G coverage. Verizon, I hold 4G just about everywhere I go within my local area here... I have talked with others, and they can't even hold it on the freeway where you would think they would have things focused the most.